Google is purchasing the internal data assets of Spirit Airlines for $10 million as part of the airline's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. The acquisition includes a wide range of corporate records, including email communications, internal spreadsheets, transaction logs, and human resources information.
Since the budget airline halted all operations in May, it has been selling off its remaining assets. While typical airline bankruptcies see the company sold in its entirety to another carrier, the complete shutdown of Spirit Airlines created an unusual path for asset liquidation. The data set being transferred to Google is extensive, containing years of operational history and customer interaction records.
Google maintains that the information is stripped of personal identifiers to protect individual privacy. The company stated that the dataset provides value for training and improving their artificial intelligence models. This transaction represents a shift in how bankruptcy assets are categorized, with data now commanding significant market value alongside physical hardware and real estate.
Mercor.io, an artificial intelligence company, acted as the secondary bidder for the assets, offering $7.5 million. The final approval for this sale remains subject to a ruling by bankruptcy court Judge Sean Lane, who is scheduled to hold a hearing this Wednesday. This move highlights the growing demand for large-scale enterprise data to satisfy the hunger of modern machine learning systems.