Google's $10M Spirit Airlines data purchase delayed by privacy concerns

A US bankruptcy judge has temporarily halted a $10 million deal for Google to acquire the digital archives of the defunct Spirit Airlines. The sale, which was intended to provide data for training artificial intelligence models, is facing legal challenges from the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.

The massive dataset includes approximately 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, payroll records, and billions of transaction records dating back to 2008. While the agreement stipulates that customer and passenger data will be excluded and that all information must be anonymized by a third party, union representatives argue that the protections for former employees are insufficient.

Google outbid the AI startup Mercor, which had offered $7.5 million for the package. The airline ceased all operations in May 2026 following financial difficulties and bankruptcy proceedings. The court must now address concerns regarding whether the de-identification process can effectively prevent the reconstruction of personal information belonging to the airline’s former workforce.