Crane Index™ Research › AI Readability 2026 › UK Airports
Crane Index™ · Annual edition
UK UK Airports AI Readability 2026
As of 1 October 2026, the median UK uk airports site scored 47 out of 100 on the Crane Index™, the measure of how readably a site presents itself to AI engines. Across the 22 sites a machine could read, scores ran from 23 to 65, a 42-point gap between the strongest and the weakest.
What this measures. The score reads how readably a site presents itself to AI engines: entity markup, structured data and machine resolvability. It is not a measure of design, brand or quality. A site can look excellent to a person and still be hard for a machine to read, and a low score is a readability finding, never a judgement on the business.
The field in 2026
The field was led by Cornwall Airport Newquay at 65, with East Midlands Airport next at 56. Not one site cleared 70 out of 100, and 9 scored below 40.
At the foot of the field sat Liverpool John Lennon Airport at 23, Humberside Airport at 23, Sumburgh Airport at 36. Each is a site a machine struggled to read, not a business doing anything other than well at what it does.
The full 2026 ranking
Composite out of 100, with the three reads behind it: AI Search Readiness (retrieval), Agent Readiness (execution) and Brand Representation.
| Rank | Organisation | Crane Index | Search | Agent | Brand |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cornwall Airport Newquaycornwallairportnewquay.com | 65 | 80 | 76 | 38 |
| 2= | East Midlands Airporteastmidlandsairport.com | 56 | 60 | 63 | 46 |
| 2= | Leeds Bradford Airportleedsbradfordairport.co.uk | 56 | 64 | 62 | 41 |
| 2= | London Southend Airportlondonsouthendairport.com | 56 | 72 | 87 | 8 |
| 2= | Norwich Airportnorwichairport.co.uk | 56 | 65 | 79 | 25 |
| 6 | London Stansted Airportstanstedairport.com | 55 | 60 | 63 | 43 |
| 7 | Manchester Airportmanchesterairport.co.uk | 54 | 55 | 63 | 43 |
| 8 | Heathrow Airportheathrow.com | 53 | 58 | 69 | 32 |
| 9 | London Gatwick Airportgatwickairport.com | 52 | 56 | 62 | 37 |
| 10 | Glasgow Prestwick Airportglasgowprestwick.com | 51 | 57 | 85 | 10 |
| 11 | Exeter Airportexeter-airport.co.uk | 48 | 57 | 79 | 8 |
| 12 | Teesside International Airportteessideinternational.com | 46 | 53 | 77 | 8 |
| 13 | London Luton Airportlondon-luton.co.uk | 41 | 48 | 68 | 8 |
| 14 | Edinburgh Airportedinburghairport.com | 39 | 46 | 62 | 8 |
| 15 | Aberdeen International Airportaberdeenairport.com | 38 | 44 | 59 | 10 |
| 16= | Inverness Airporthial.co.uk/inverness-airport | 37 | 45 | 56 | 10 |
| 16= | Southampton Airportsouthamptonairport.com | 37 | 44 | 53 | 13 |
| 18= | Kirkwall Airporthial.co.uk/kirkwall-airport | 36 | 45 | 56 | 8 |
| 18= | Stornoway Airporthial.co.uk/homepage/9/stornoway-airport | 36 | 44 | 56 | 8 |
| 18= | Sumburgh Airporthial.co.uk/sumburgh-airport | 36 | 45 | 56 | 8 |
| 21= | Humberside Airporthumbersideairport.com | 23 | 21 | 34 | 15 |
| 21= | Liverpool John Lennon Airportliverpoolairport.com | 23 | 21 | 34 | 15 |
Download this edition: the full field as a spreadsheet (CSV), or the same run as JSON. Licensed CC BY 4.0, so it is yours to publish and build on with attribution. Every unreadable site carries empty score cells, never a zero.
This is the fixed 2026 edition, pinned to the scan measured 1 October 2026, so the figures on it do not change. The live field, re-run on the first of each month, is on the current UK Airports benchmark. For how the score is built, see the methodology.
Licensed CC BY 4.0. Cite as: The Crane Index™, UK UK Airports AI readability 2026, The Crane Consultancy, measured 1 October 2026. https://thecraneconsultancy.com/research/uk-airports-ai-readability-2026/