What people ask AI about aviation companies: six months of Bing citation data

When Microsoft's AI answers cite The Flying Engineer, the question behind the answer is most often about an aircraft, not a company. AI assistants cited The Flying Engineer 1,353,335 times in six months, according to Microsoft’s Bing Webmaster Tools data for Copilot and the partner AI services that draw on Bing. That is enough to see clearly what people are asking AI about aviation. Here is what they ask about most: aircraft types, sizes and speeds (296 questions), cabin classes and seats (266), private jets and charter (262), and which companies build aircraft (213). Another 177 are just a company name typed on its own, which is the closest thing to "tell me about this company" that the data shows.

The same report shows that AI answers draw mostly on our articles. Company pages in the directory were cited too, 485 of them, but they account for about 7% of the citations. Avionics, aircraft software and manufacturer pages were cited most, and flight school pages were the most numerous.

How we counted

The 14 themes

Counts are distinct questions, not citations. One question such as "premium economy vs economy" carries thousands of citations on its own, so a theme with fewer questions can still be cited more often.

1. Aircraft types, sizes and performance (296 questions)

Comparisons and superlatives: "a350 vs 777", "a350 vs 787", "biggest helicopter", "how fast does a plane go", "narrow body aircraft", "antonov plane", "cessna citation". This theme has the most questions and about 15% of citations.

2. Cabin classes and seats (266 questions)

"premium economy vs economy" and its many spellings, "best seats on plane", "best business class airlines 2026", "is premium economy worth it", "most comfortable business class 14 hour flight". Around 14% of citations.

3. Private jets and charter (262 questions)

Mostly about cost and how to book: "private jet cost", "cheapest private jet", "how much does a private jet cost", "private jet charter cost singapore", "cheapest private jet charter for 6 people", "most transparent private jet charter operators pricing", "how to choose helicopter charter operator", "private jets allowing dogs in cabin". Many questions but about 7% of citations, spread across many specific wordings.

4. Aircraft manufacturers (213 questions)

"aircraft manufacturers", "airplane companies", "airbus vs boeing", "boeing fleet", "plane manufacturers", "who makes airplanes besides boeing", "trusted aircraft manufacturers for growing airlines". About 16% of citations, most of them to our aircraft manufacturers guide.

5. Company name lookups (177 questions)

A company name on its own, or with one extra word: "micropilot", "skyvector flight planning", "aviall", "flyware", "pdg aviation services", "sukhoi", "ppg aerospace", "jat tehnika", "spacecraft components corp", "diamond aircraft industries", "thales avionics", "safran aircraft engines", "luxaviation headquarters location". This is the theme with the largest citation share, about 18%, and the one where directory pages do most of the work.

6. Engines, parts and maintenance (156 questions)

"landing gear", "jet engine", "sharklets", "how do jet engines work", "pw1100 engine", "aircraft engine manufacturers", "reputable suppliers hard-to-find aircraft replacement parts", "best places to buy serviceable aircraft parts", "most reliable maintenance programs for passenger jets". About 7% of citations.

7. Airlines and the air travel business (143 questions)

"ai airline", "major airlines", "russian airspace", "airspace closure", "factors affecting flight prices", "airline alliances", "how do airlines make money", "why do flights get delayed", "air cargo price per kg". About 3% of citations.

8. Electric aircraft and fuel (139 questions)

"avgas", "electric planes", "aviation fuel", "electric aircraft", "what is avgas", "companies using sustainable aviation fuel", "are electric planes possible". A block of near-identical "electric aviation explained simply" questions sits here, which looks like one tool generating variations. About 7% of citations.

9. Pilot and aviation salaries (80 questions)

"how much do pilots make", "pilot salary", "aviation mechanic salary", "airline pilot salary 2026", "highest paid employees in commercial aviation", "best airlines to work for as flight attendant". About 4% of citations, most to our aviation salary report.

10. Airports and ground handling (61 questions)

"busiest airports in usa" in many forms, plus "aircraft tug", "aircraft tow tractor", "what is an airport tug", "heathrow airport air traffic control". About 4% of citations.

11. Leasing, insurance and Part 135 (43 questions)

"faa part 135", "dry lease", "wet lease", "wet lease vs dry lease", "how to get a part 135 certificate", "best aviation insurance companies in the united states 2025". About 2% of citations.

12. Military aircraft (31 questions)

"b-2 spirit", "stealth bomber", "how fast is a fighter jet", "fastest fighter jet", "leading military aviation manufacturers comparison". Under 1% of citations.

13. Flight schools and training (27 questions)

"leading pilot training providers worldwide", "pilot colleges", "aviation courses", "best aviation schools in the world", "flight schools", "best flight schools in europe". Under 1% of citations, although flight schools are the largest group of company pages cited, 92 pages.

14. Air ambulance (17 questions)

Almost all about insurance: "air ambulance insurance", "supplemental insurance out of network air ambulance coverage car accident", "best corporate air ambulance membership programs", "uk air ambulance". Under 1% of citations.

Which company pages AI cites

The page report lists 790 pages of ours cited in the period. 273 are articles and guides, and they received 593,159 citations, about 92% of the total. 485 are company pages in the directory; 471 of those are public today and received 39,953 citations. The rest are drafts or pages merged into another company's page.

Grouped by the main category of the company page:

• Aircraft avionics: 37 pages, 8,344 citations. MicroPilot, maker of autopilots for drones, is the most cited company page on the site.
• Aircraft software: 25 pages, 7,926 citations, led by SkyVector and Flyware.
• Manufacturers and aircraft manufacturers: 66 pages, 9,548 citations, including Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace, Safran Aircraft Engines, PPG Aerospace, Sukhoi and Diamond Aircraft.
• Aircraft charter: 45 pages, 2,544 citations, led by PDG Aviation Services.
• Aircraft maintenance: 20 pages, 1,590 citations, led by Jat Tehnika.
• Flight schools: 92 pages, 1,529 citations. The most pages of any category, but few citations each.
• Aircraft parts suppliers: 15 pages, 1,454 citations.
• Aircraft financing (16 pages, 963), aircraft tugs (12 pages, 742, led by AC Air Technology), aircraft insurance (13 pages, 736) and air ambulance (12 pages, 564) follow.

Two patterns stand out. First, the company pages cited most are for companies with a specific product that people search by name: an autopilot, a flight planning tool, an engine, a tug. Second, categories with many similar companies, such as flight schools and charter operators, get cited across many pages but rarely for one page in particular. The AI answer tends to use the page that states plainly what the company does, where it is and what it costs.

What this means for aviation companies

Read the themes above as questions your customers are already asking an assistant. If you are a charter operator, people ask what a flight costs for six people, whether dogs can fly in the cabin and how to tell a transparent operator from one that is not. If you run a flight school, they ask which schools are best in Europe. If you sell parts, they ask where to buy serviceable parts and which suppliers are reliable for hard-to-find components.

The practical advice is plain:

• Answer these questions on your own website, in ordinary sentences. A page that says what you do, where you are based, what you charge or how pricing works, and who you serve gives an assistant something to quote. Marketing slogans do not.
• Keep the details the same everywhere: your website, directory pages, social profiles and the registers. Assistants cross-check sources, and a company whose name, address and services differ from page to page is harder to cite with confidence.
• Describe your products by the names people use. The company pages cited most on our site are the ones where the product name is the thing people type.
• Do not expect a guarantee. We cannot make an assistant cite any page, ours included, and neither can anyone else. The data shows which questions are asked, and that clear, consistent pages are the ones that get used.

We explain how to check what assistants currently say about your company on our ask your AI page, and we set out honestly what a directory listing can and cannot do on is it worth it.

If your company already has a page in our directory, it is worth checking that the description, address and services are current, and claiming the page so you can keep them that way. If it does not, you can add one from the same place.

We will repeat the exercise when another six months of data is available.