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World Aviation Festival
RWS sharing the Global Airlines benchmark.

The festival opens in Lisbon on 13 Oct. 2026. RWS, our partner for the Global Airlines benchmark, will be there with the first reading of how AI understands 75 of the largest airline groups, and an invitation for each attending airline to see where it stands.

ARTICLE ID ART/2026/AI/0047
PUBLISHED 13 Oct. 2026
READ TIME 5 min

Travellers are starting to let AI agents find and book their flights, and those agents work from what each airline has published.

The question that follows is how well AI understands an airline today, and where the gap sits between what the airline knows of itself and what AI sees. At the World Aviation Festival, RWS and AAAnow bring the answer for the sector, released together, and the means for each airline to see its own position.

01The festival.

The World Aviation Festival, organised by Terrapinn, is billed as the largest aviation technology event in the world. From 13 to 15 Oct. 2026 it brings more than 4,500 attendees and 600 speakers to FIL in Lisbon: the leaders of airlines and airports, and the executives in charge of their software, services, marketing and distribution.

AI, airline retail and the passenger experience run through the agenda. They meet in one place : what AI reads about an airline is what it repeats to the traveller, and increasingly what it acts on for them.

02The first Global Airlines benchmark.

The Global Airlines benchmark is the first AI Readiness Benchmark for the sector. It reads 75 of the largest airline groups from the outside in, as AI does, and places each on the AI Readiness Maturity Scale™. Of the 75, 61 (81%) sit at ACT, where AI struggles to read what the sites publish; 4 (5%) at OPTIMISE, with foundations in place and gaps to close; and 1 (1%) at MONITOR, the strongest position. A further 9 (12%) could not be read, with AI access refused or the website unavailable.

ACT81%OPTIMISE5%MONITOR1%BLOCKED12%

AAAnow, Global Airlines AI Readiness Benchmark, 75 airline groups, first results 2 Oct. 2026.

Screenshot of the Global Airlines benchmark page. A dark panel headed AI Readiness audit, fitness for visibility, reads Global Airlines, with the RWS logo, and explains that travellers are starting to let AI agents find and book flights. Beneath it: reference SEC/2026/06, 75 organisations, first results 2 Oct. 2026, report partner RWS. Below the panel, a ring chart titled The sector, as AI sees it, places 75 sites: 61 at ACT, where AI struggles to read what the sites publish; 4 at OPTIMISE, foundations in place with gaps to close; 1 at MONITOR, the strongest position; and 9 blocked, where the AI connection was refused, AI agent access was prevented or the website was not available.
The Global Airlines benchmark, first results. Select to enlarge.

The risk profile reads the same sector for likely misinformation. Of the 66 sites AI could reach, 57 sit at high or severe risk: the places where an AI answer to a traveller, an investor or a regulator is most likely to depart from what the airline would stand behind.

Released together.

The benchmark is released with RWS as report partner. A sector reading published once, by 2 organisations that each know the sector, provides each airline with the same reference point at the same moment. A board can see where the sector stands and where its own airline sits within it, and that understanding is what decisions on AI are built on.


The full reading, stage by stage, is on the Global Airlines benchmark.

03What RWS does for airlines.

RWS is where many airline websites are managed. Its Tridion Sites platform lets an airline run many websites, brands and languages, and deliver that content to each channel travellers use. China Airlines runs a unified design across 12 sites in 11 languages; Turkish Airlines reaches 250 sites in 13 languages; Emirates delivers regional content on 168 sites in 28 languages.

The benchmark shows how AI reads an airline today. With RWS, the airline has the means to keep 1 consistent, current account across its sites and languages, which is where closing the gap begins. Read more at rws.com/content-management/tridion/airlines/RWS, Tridion Sites for airlinesWe do not enable external links - please copy and paste, you are then certain as to the link being opened.

04Request your own summary.

Screenshot of the RWS attendee page, with the AAAnow and RWS logos at the top. A dark panel reads: exclusive attendee benefit; Airlines Top 75 AI Readiness, your fitness for visibility audit; as AI grows, are you fit for visibility, and are your directors and officers unnecessarily exposed? On the left, a short text explains that attendees can request the Top 75 airlines sector results and a fitness for visibility summary for their main website, with a contact card for Dipo Ajose-Coker, Head of Marketing, Content Technology. On the right, a teal request form for World Aviation Festival attendees asks for name and email, offers 2 questions to select, Are we fit for AI visibility? and Are our directors and officers unnecessarily exposed?, and ends with a Request my summary button.
The attendee page for World Aviation Festival attendees. Select to enlarge.

For festival attendees, RWS offers an exclusive benefit: the top-level sector results for the Top 75 airlines, and an AI Readiness, fitness for visibility summary for your airline’s main website. Visit RWS at the festival, or request it from the attendee page, choosing what you would like to understand.

  1. Are we fit for AI visibility?
  2. Are our directors and officers unnecessarily exposed?

These are the 2 questions at the centre of AAAnow’s work. Being fit for AI visibility means being found, read correctly and represented in terms you would stand behind. As AI grows, what it repeats about the airline matters to those accountable for it.

Dipo Ajose-Coker, Head of Marketing, Content Technology at RWS, is the contact for the festival.

05Partners, the most support possible.

The Global Airlines benchmark is how we work with a partner. We read the sector together and release it together, and the partner carries it into the market where it is already known, with its own clients and its own events. With each release the partner’s presence in that market grows, and the sector gains a shared, evidenced understanding of where it stands.

A very large 4-engine cargo aircraft painted in AAAnow teal, parked on a concrete apron under a clear sky with a desert mountain range behind. The AAAnow logo and the line 25 yrs of innovation sit on the forward fuselage beside the door, and cream and gold lines, one dotted, sweep from the nose along the body and curve up the tail.
Room for the support - we'd like to think we need a lot of space to carry our commitment.

06Questions for airline leaders.

The attendee page sets out 10 questions on AI Readiness for an airline, with a short answer to each.

  1. Where could directors and officers face personal liability? Depending on applicable law and their own conduct: oversight failures, such as bad-faith failures to monitor mission-critical risks or consciously ignoring serious warning signs; misleading disclosures to investors, including false claims about AI capability; and breaches of management responsibilities under cybersecurity legislation, including national laws implementing NIS2. Any conclusion depends on the individual’s responsibilities and the evidence.
  2. How do we keep content consistent across brands and languages? RWS’s Tridion Sites helps airlines keep content consistent through shared updates and translation workflows. Its China Airlines and Emirates case studies show airlines using the platform to manage multilingual websites.
  3. What can we do about this? Set an executive mandate for 1 content platform and 1 way of delivering web pages and PDFs. Standardise how content is published, maintained and removed, so departments follow the same system, and make control and removal of digital sprawl explicit objectives of that mandate.
  4. Why review our content before scaling airline AI? AI can encounter outdated websites, contradictory pages and documents that remain online. Reviewing that material identifies what to correct, consolidate or retire as part of the airline’s AI programme.
  5. What does fitness for AI visibility mean for our airline? Being found, read correctly and represented in terms the airline would stand behind. Review whether AI can reach and interpret the main website, and where its content could contribute to likely misinformation.
  6. How can we reduce misleading answers from passenger chatbots? Bring the chatbot’s source content under the same publishing controls as the website and PDFs. Check its answers against the applicable passenger information, then address conflicting source material as well as the response passengers receive.
  7. What should we review before AI agents act for travellers? The information and processes those agents will rely on, including cancellation and passenger recovery content. Bring those sources into the same publishing process, with clear responsibility for keeping them accurate as circumstances change.
  8. Could older PDFs still shape what AI says about our airline? Yes. AI systems can encounter older documents that remain publicly available. Include PDFs in the content review, identify which remain valid, and retire or clearly distinguish superseded material.
  9. How do we know whether our AI readiness is improving? Establish the starting position, make corrections and repeat the assessment. A record of changes and unresolved findings shows leadership what has improved and what still needs attention, and ongoing monitoring and independent reporting support that continuing review.
  10. What does the attendee offer provide for our airline? The top-level sector results for the Top 75 airlines, and an AI Readiness, fitness for visibility summary for the airline’s main website. Entitlement is confirmed by email, with a request for the website you would like assessed.

07Enjoy the show.

Enjoy the festival. Visit RWS, see the first Global Airlines benchmark, and find out where your airline stands: whether it is fit for AI visibility, and whether its directors and officers are becoming increasingly, and unnecessarily, exposed as AI grows. Understanding where you stand is where the AI advantage begins. Then take it.

Sources.

The event, partner and benchmark details in this article. Addresses are shown for reference.

  1. Terrapinn · World Aviation Festival 2026
    Event page · 13 to 15 Oct. 2026, FIL, Lisbon. Organiser, dates, venue, attendance and audience. https://www.terrapinn.com/conference/aviation-festival/index.stmTerrapinn, World Aviation FestivalWe do not enable external links - please copy and paste, you are then certain as to the link being opened
  2. RWS · Tridion Sites for airlines
    The platform, with the China Airlines, Turkish Airlines and Emirates figures. https://www.rws.com/content-management/tridion/airlines/RWS, Tridion Sites for airlinesWe do not enable external links - please copy and paste, you are then certain as to the link being opened
  3. AAAnow · Global Airlines, the AI Readiness Benchmark
    75 airline groups placed on the AI Readiness Maturity Scale™, first results 2 Oct. 2026, report partner RWS. https://aaanow.ai/ai-readiness-benchmark/global-airlines/
  4. AAAnow · Global Airlines, the risk profile
    The same sector read for likely misinformation. https://aaanow.ai/ai-readiness-benchmark/global-airlines/risk-profile/
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