Google has acquired a huge collection of data from failed US airline Spirit Airlines for £7.39 million, giving the technology giant access to hundreds of millions of records that could be used to improve its AI services.
Spirit, which suffered heavy losses after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the aviation industry in 2020, never managed to recover its finances and permanently grounded itself in May 2026. The airline has now entered liquidation and is selling off its assets to raise money and settle at least some of its debts.
Among those assets was an enormous trove of de-identified business, operational and customer data. A court filing shows Google successfully bid for the collection, beating Mercor, a company that provides data for training AI models.
The purchase gives Google access to emails, Microsoft Teams items, OneDrive and SharePoint files, customer service records, operational information and much more. The £7.39 million figure uses the August 18, 2026 USD/GBP rate of about 0.739.
What Google Got For £7.39 Million
The sheer scale of the data Google acquired from Spirit is striking. According to a court document filed last week, the collection contains 100 million emails and 500 million Microsoft Teams items, giving Google access to a vast archive of communications created during the airline's operations.
The purchase also includes 17 million OneDrive files and 20.5 million items from SharePoint. Together, those records represent a huge amount of information created and stored by Spirit employees across the company's operations.
Google also acquired more than 30 million recorded customer service calls and over 15 million customer service chat records. Those records could provide detailed examples of the kinds of conversations that take place between an airline and its customers, from routine queries to more difficult interactions with its support teams.
Another 600,000 ServiceNow tickets form part of the collection. The data also contains 13.7 million active email addresses from Oracle's Responsys marketing application, as well as details covering 11 million sales of in-flight Wi-Fi services.
The collection goes well beyond customer information and internal communications. It also contains operational data covering more than 763,000 flights, five million crew pairings and more than 1.2 million fuel slips.
There are records relating to purchases of 787,452 parts as well, giving the collection a detailed record of the everyday activities involved in running an airline.
For Google, that variety may be one of the most valuable aspects of the deal. Rather than acquiring a single type of dataset, the company has obtained information covering customer service, communications, finance, marketing and aviation operations.
Google has reportedly said it bought the data to improve its AI services. The fact that Mercor was the underbidder also highlights why the collection attracted attention from companies involved directly in AI training.
Mercor provides data to train AI models, meaning another company operating specifically in the AI data market was also prepared to pay for Spirit's records.
Spirit's Data Could Become AI Training Material
The deal also points towards a changing approach to AI development. The assumption that bigger models and larger amounts of general-purpose data are always better is increasingly being questioned by AI experts.
The Register recently reported on growing interest in smaller AI models trained around specific fields of knowledge. Rather than attempting to build one model that knows everything, a model focused on a particular area can potentially be more useful for certain applications.
Spirit's data could fit that idea particularly well.
The collection contains information from virtually every part of an airline's operations. Flight records, crew pairings, fuel slips and parts purchases could potentially provide a foundation for an AI system focused on aviation operations.
The customer service calls and chat records could also offer a different type of training material. Combined with the airline's internal communications and service tickets, they could provide an AI system with examples of how airline staff handle real-world situations.
There is also a large amount of financial and administrative information in the collection. That could potentially be useful for a different type of specialised AI, particularly one designed around the routine financial records and processes involved in running a large organisation.
That may be what makes the £7.39 million purchase interesting. Google did not simply acquire a pile of old airline documents. It acquired a large, varied dataset containing years of information about how a major company operated.
Google said it plans to use Spirit Airlines' internal business data for product development and to train its AI models. The data includes emails, Microsoft Teams chats, documents, spreadsheets and other business records from the airline.
The purchase covers a large collection of Spirit's internal data, but it does not include passenger profiles or mileage membership information. The data being sold is also required to be deidentified before it is transferred to Google.
The sale agreement requires Google to keep the information in deidentified form and not intentionally associate it with any particular person or household. That means the data being transferred to Google is not supposed to contain information that identifies individual customers.
The transaction is part of Spirit's bankruptcy proceedings and is still subject to approval by the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. A hearing on the proposed sale is scheduled for August 19.
That provides an important layer of protection, at least according to the terms described in the filing. The data Google purchased was not supposed to be sold as a straightforward collection of identifiable customer records.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What did Google acquire from Spirit Airlines?Google acquired a large collection of de-identified business, operational, and customer data from Spirit Airlines.
- Why did Google purchase Spirit Airlines' data?Google purchased the data to improve its AI services by using the diverse dataset for training AI models.
- What types of data were included in the acquisition?The acquisition included emails, Microsoft Teams items, OneDrive and SharePoint files, customer service records, operational information, and more.
- How much did Google pay for Spirit Airlines' data?Google paid £7.39 million for the data, using the August 18, 2026 USD/GBP rate of about 0.739.
- Was the data de-identified before the sale?Yes, the data was de-identified before being put up for sale, and Google has promised to remove any personally identifiable information it finds.
