AI names Delta most in airlines, 3 points clear

When buyers ask AI assistants questions like “What are the best airlines to consider for both domestic US travel and international flights in 2026?” or “Best affordable domestic US airlines for economy travel under $200?”, a small set of airlinesget cited every time. Most don't. This report measures which.

Who AI cites most

Delta is cited in 62 of 100 prompt-engine pairs (62%). 95% confidence interval 55-73.

Concentration

The top 3 brands (Delta, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines) capture 48% of all citations in this segment. 10 of 20 tracked brands are cited in fewer than 1 in 10 prompt-engine pairs.

Where the field sits

Of 20 brands tested: 2 in repeat-use, 5 in first-encounter, 13 not yet cited. Overall, AI cites a brand from this segment in 16% of buyer-intent prompt-engine pairs.

Engine asymmetry

Southwest Airlines is cited in 95% of Claude prompts but only 0% on Perplexity, visibility is engine-specific, not universal.

Phase flip

Southwest Airlines actually outperforms Delta on Filtered Discovery prompts, overall Panel Score hides this category-specific strength.

Notable absence

Hawaiian Airlines is not yet cited, 0 prompts across all 100 prompt-engine pairs. A recognizable brand AI is not yet surfacing.

Average Panel Score across the segment is 19.

Analyst note. Delta leads with a Panel Score of 65, but no brand reaches the leader tier.

Delta and Southwest Airlines are the only brands in the foothold tier, with Panel Scores of 65 and 62 respectively. Delta excels on Gemini with a 90 score, while Southwest peaks on Claude at 95. American Airlines trails with a Panel Score of 44, struggling in the filtered phase at 25. The rest of the field is mostly invisible, with 13 brands not yet cited.

Risk. Delta's absence on Perplexity, where it scores 0, poses a risk if competitors gain traction there.

Ranked by Panel Score, a 0 to 100 score that weights four buying phases: Discovery, Filtered Discovery, Comparison and Evaluation. Citations count fully and mentions count at half weight; engines are weighted equally. Spread is the gap between a brand's best and worst engine: under 15pp is durable, 50pp and up is engine-dependent. Engine columns count the prompts (out of 20) where that engine cited the brand as a recommendation.

Default choice (75+)

AI's go-to recommendation in airlines. The tier other brands are competing into.

Repeat use (50 to 74)

Cited often enough to feel reliably present across prompts and engines. One signal away from default.

First encounter (25 to 49)

Discovered and cited occasionally, but visibility is inconsistent. Real to AI, not yet trusted.

Not yet cited (0 to 24)

AI does not surface this brand for buyer-intent prompts in airlines.

How often each engine cites a brand from this category as a recommendation, averaged across all 20 brands tested. Perplexity and Grok search the live web; ChatGPT and Claude lean more on trained knowledge; Gemini blends both.

Citation rate by buying phase, averaged across all brands tested.

Each cell is the brand's citation rate for that phase, shaded darker as the rate rises. A solid dark row is a durable brand: AI cites it across the whole funnel. Dark on the left and pale on the right is awareness without recommendation, the demand-leak pattern. Pale on the left and dark on the right is a brand AI weighs in Comparison and Evaluation but does not surface in Discovery.

Derived metrics computed from the same data, showing how this segment behaves on AI search. The State of AI Search compares them across segments.

Aggregated across every brand, prompt and engine combination tested. These are the names AI surfaces when buyers ask about airlines.

Ranked by mention count and engine breadth. These are panel candidates: brands AI treats as part of the category even though we are not measuring them yet. Open a row to read the AI quote that surfaced it.

The Panel Score is calibrated to a generic shopping-assistant prompt. Buyers don't arrive generically. We re-ran the same 20 canonical prompts five more times, each with a different buyer-persona signal in the system prompt: budget-conscious, premium, working professional, first-time, values-driven.

We re-ran the same 20 canonical prompts under eight demographic system-prompt variants: gender (men, women) crossed with generation (Gen Z 18-29, Millennial 30-45, Gen X 46-61, Boomer 62+). Age ranges follow Pew Research boundaries. The system prompt names the age range only; the labels here are descriptive.

Each is a category-specific decision drawn from this month's data, with the mapou service that puts it into practice.

1. Concentration risk

   In airlines, AI effectively recommends 10.0 of 20 tracked brands. The top brand captures 17% of citations. The next 2 capture another 16%. Visibility is concentrated but not winner-takes-all.

   How mapou helps: GEO & Citation Architecture restructures your entity data so you can break into the top set.

2. Engines split

   Engines disagree on the airlines leaderboard. Mean cross-engine agreement is only 0.45 (1.0 = perfect agreement, 0 = independent). Optimizing for ChatGPT will not necessarily improve your Claude or Gemini visibility. You need engine-specific strategy.

   How mapou helps: AI Visibility Audit maps your position separately on each of the 5 engines.

3. Persona-volatile category

   Airlines rankings shift meaningfully by buyer persona. Delta is the baseline #1 brand, but loses the top spot under at least one buyer signal (budget, premium, professional, first-time, values-driven). Top-3 overlap with baseline is only 80% across personas. Your baseline visibility number is incomplete.

   How mapou helps: Persona-Tuned Panel Score computes the visibility number for your actual buyer mix.

4. Visibility tier mix

   In airlines, 0 of 20 tracked brands clear Panel Score 75 (default-choice tier). 13 are below Panel Score 25 (not yet cited). The strategy differs at each tier. If you are below 25, you need foundational visibility infrastructure before tactical optimization.

   How mapou helps: AI Visibility Audit identifies your tier; GEO & Citation Architecture moves you up.

The 20 canonical prompts span the four Panel Score phases (Discovery, Filtered Discovery, Comparison, Evaluation). The set is fixed at methodology v1.0 and reused every monthly run, so Panel Score changes are paired comparisons, not noise.

The exact prompt templates and phase-weighting formula are part of mapou's proprietary methodology, shared with paying clients alongside custom benchmarks for their brand. See the framework.