Google just bought 600 million airline emails, chats, and documents for AI training
Spirit Airlines may be grounded, but the airline’s corporate data will get a second chance.
Photo by Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
- Google paid $10M to acquire Spirit Airlines' deidentified corporate data through an auction in 2026.
- The deal includes roughly 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams chats, and access to OneDrive and SharePoint files.
- Google outbid Mercor.io Corporation, which offered $7.5 million, and plans to use the data to improve AI models.
- Spirit Airlines' passenger profiles and frequent flyer data are excluded, and a federal judge must still approve the sale.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Google has paid $10 million to acquire corporate data from Spirit Airlines, an American airline company that went bankrupt earlier this year.
Spirit Airlines was founded in 1964 and operated as a low-cost carrier (LCC). It was the seventh-largest passenger carrier in North America until it ceased its operations on May 2nd, 2026.
Google saw an opportunity when Spirit Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and had scheduled an auction hearing for the company’s deidentified corporate data.
Google won the bankruptcy auction for the data by offering $10 million, beating an alternate bidder, Mercor.io Corporation, which offered $7.5 million.
Google says that it wants to use the former airline’s data to improve its products and AI models.
According to a court filing, Google purchased approximately 100 million emails and 500 million Microsoft Teams chats, including access to email accounts, OneDrive accounts, SharePoint, and employee documents.
In addition to internal communications, corporate documents such as marketing materials, HR info, project management documents, financial databases, audits, and presentations are included in the deal as well.
The data Google bought doesn’t include passenger profiles or frequent flyer information.
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“We acquired part of an enterprise dataset from Spirit Airlines, which can help improve our products and AI models,” a Google spokesperson told Axios.
Both the spokesperson and the court document say that Google won’t receive any personal information from the dataset.
Before any data is handed over to the Mountain View-based tech company, all data will be “deidentified,” meaning that any personally identifiable information will be removed so Google can’t re-identify users.
It’s up to a federal judge to approve the deal.
