More than 120,000 AI visits in 30 days: which AI reads aviation websites
Radu BalasPublished 3 min readEvery day, AI tools read aviation websites. Some read them to answer a question someone just asked, others to build the knowledge their assistants draw on later. We looked at our own server logs to see exactly which AI tools visit an aviation directory, how often, and what they read.
The figures below cover 30 days, from 11 September to 11 October 2026, and come from our hosting provider's records of every request to theflyingengineer.com. A visit here means one page or file requested by that tool.
The headline
AI tools visited our site more than 120,000 times in 30 days. That is about 4,000 a day, in two groups that work differently:
- 45,587 visits from AI assistants: tools such as ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Claude fetching pages, usually while working on a person's question or keeping their search index fresh.
- 76,982 visits from AI crawlers: tools that collect pages in bulk to train or update AI models.
Which AI assistants read us most
| AI assistant | Visits in 30 days | Share |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI (ChatGPT search, ChatGPT, GPT actions, Operator) | 31,955 | 70% |
| Perplexity | 11,052 | 24% |
| Claude (Anthropic) | 2,342 | 5% |
| DuckDuckGo Assist | 221 | 0.5% |
| Mistral | 17 | under 0.1% |
OpenAI's search crawler alone accounted for 30,784 visits. It works in the background, so that ChatGPT can cite fresh pages when someone searches. The 464 visits from ChatGPT's own user agent are closer to one person, one question: ChatGPT opening a page while it writes an answer.
Which AI crawlers read us most
| Crawler | Visits in 30 days |
|---|---|
| Meta (web indexer and external agent) | 26,934 |
| ClaudeBot (Anthropic) | 22,661 |
| ShapBot | 11,921 |
| GPTBot (OpenAI) | 8,882 |
| Amazonbot | 3,497 |
| Applebot | 2,729 |
| Common Crawl | 358 |
What they read
AI assistants visited our company pages 8,507 times in the same 30 days: Perplexity 4,500, OpenAI 2,380 and Claude 1,602. They also sweep our category pages, such as charter, empty legs, air ambulance and helicopter services, around 400 times each.
When ChatGPT opened a page for a person, the most read pages were practical guides with numbers and dates: air cargo shipping cost per kilogram, how airspace closures affect flights in 2026, the Russian airspace ban, how private jet empty legs work, and Boeing and Airbus orders in 2026.
Separately, Bing's AI answers (Microsoft Copilot, Bing AI summaries and partners) cited our pages 710,288 times between 9 July and 6 October 2026, according to Bing Webmaster Tools. We publish those figures in full on our numbers page.
What aviation companies can learn from this
- AI reads facts, not slogans. The pages read most answer one clear question with numbers: a price, a time, a date, a rule. Put your fleet, bases, approvals and prices on your site in plain words.
- Different assistants, different habits. OpenAI and Perplexity read the most, so being on pages they already visit, like trusted directories and guides, puts your company in front of them.
- Do not block the assistants by accident. Check that your website's robots.txt and firewall let search and assistant tools in, or they cannot mention you.
- Keep your details current. Assistants repeat what they find. An old address, a dead link or a closed service on any site that lists you can end up in an answer.
How we counted
All figures come from the request logs of our hosting provider (Vercel), which identifies AI tools by their published names. We left out requests to images and system files, and our own test sessions. A visit is a request for one page, not a unique person: one question can trigger several visits, and crawlers visit without anyone asking. The numbers show how much AI tools read aviation pages, not how many people they sent to us.
If your aviation company wants to be on the pages AI tools read, add or claim your company page.