Google To Buy Bankrupt Spirit Airlines' Business Data For $10 Mn To Train AI

Google has emerged as the winning bidder in an auction for a large collection of business data and technology assets belonging to bankrupt Spirit Airlines.

Google has agreed to pay $10 million for information it plans to use in product development and to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models, as per a report by Bloomberg Law.

The assets being acquired include internal employee emails, Microsoft Teams messages, spreadsheets and calendars, alongside data covering the airline's marketing, productivity and operations.

Google said the dataset would be stripped of identifying details before it is handed over. "We acquired part of an enterprise dataset from Spirit Airlines, which can be helpful in improving our products and AI models," the company said in a statement, as per Bloomberg Law.

The company stressed that it would not receive any personal information and that the data would be "rigorously scrubbed of any personally identifiable information by a third party before receipt."

A hearing to consider approval of Google's proposed purchase is scheduled for August 19 before US Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane.

Customer And Loyalty Data Excluded

Court records show the sale does not cover Spirit's 97.5 million passenger profiles or an estimated 50.2 million records linked to its Free Spirit loyalty programme.

Privileged materials are also excluded, while the remaining information will undergo a process designed to ensure it cannot be linked to individual customers.

The dataset is extensive as it includes around 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams chats and collaboration records, as well as data related to revenue, aircraft operations, employee productivity, audits and fraud, as per the report.

Other assets include marketing, human resources, strategy and project management records. Court filings also refer to pricing data covering 7.2 billion competitor flights and about 7.5 billion passenger transactions dating back to 2008.

The proposed purchase also covers roughly 30 million lines of code, development metadata, software models and algorithms, according to Bloomberg Law. More than 175,000 employee records dating back to 1986 are also part of the broader data cache.

Google Beats Mercor In Bankruptcy Auction

Google's $10 million offer topped a $7.5 million bid from AI data company Mercor, as per Reuters. Mercor has been designated as the backup buyer if the Google transaction does not go through.

Spirit shut down on May 2 amid its second Chapter 11 bankruptcy in two years, following mounting debt, higher fuel costs and unsuccessful financing efforts.

The airline had about $8.1 billion in debt and laid off roughly 17,000 employees when it ceased operations.

Spirit has separately been selling other assets, including 22 take-off and landing slots at New York's LaGuardia Airport, which were sold to JetBlue for $58.5 million, as per Bloomberg Law.