Google spent $10 million to acquire a massive repository of deidentified data from defunct low-cost carrier Spirit. Spirit hit financial turbulence when COVID-19 arrived in 2020 and began generating losses. The company balance sheet never recovered, and the airline grounded itself permanently in May 2026. The carrier entered liquidation to wind itself up and started auctioning assets to raise cash and settle debts.
A court document filed last week reveals that Google won the bidding for the data trove. For $10 million, Google acquired 100 million emails, 500 million items from Microsoft Teams, 17 million OneDrive files, and 20.5 million items from SharePoint. The search giant also secured more than 30 million recorded customer service calls and over 15 million customer service chat records.
Additional assets in the purchase include 600,000 ServiceNow tickets and 13.7 million active email addresses from Oracle Responsys. Google also obtained records covering 11 million in-flight Wi-Fi sales, data on more than 763,000 flights, 5 million crew pairings, 1.2 million fuel slips, and records detailing purchases for 787,452 parts.
Google reportedly stated that it bought the data to improve its artificial intelligence services. The underbidder was Mercor, a firm that supplies data to train artificial intelligence models. This auction demonstrates that Spirit data holds clear value for artificial intelligence companies.
Artificial intelligence experts increasingly view large language models as blunt instruments. Smaller models trained on specific fields of knowledge are proving more useful in certain applications. Google may use the material to build an aviation operations model or apply everyday financial records to another artificial intelligence project.
Passengers who flew with Spirit and worry about privacy can take some reassurance. The court filing states the data was deidentified prior to the sale, and Google has promised to scrub any personally identifiable information it discovers in the collection.
The Register awaits evidence of the inevitable errors that mean some personal info appears as the result of a future prompt, or search.
