Google acquires Spirit Airlines' internal business data for $10 million to train AI models

Google has won a bankruptcy auction to acquire the internal business data of defunct budget carrier Spirit Airlines for $10 million, outbidding AI data startup Mercor. Pending approval by a federal bankruptcy judge, Google plans to use the massive dataset—which includes 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams chats, and operational records—to train its AI models. The transaction excludes passenger profiles and loyalty data, and Google has committed to having a third party scrub all personally identifiable information.

Google Spirit Airlines data acquisition

• ▪Google won a bankruptcy auction to acquire a massive repository of internal business data from the defunct Spirit Airlines for $10 million, pending judicial approval
• ▪Google plans to use the acquired Spirit Airlines enterprise dataset to improve its products and train its artificial intelligence models
• ▪Spirit Airlines ceased operations and entered liquidation in May 2026 after failing to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to high debt and high fuel costs
• ▪A U.S. bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of New York was scheduled to consider final approval of the data sale at a court hearing on Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Corporate data AI training value

• ▪Proprietary corporate data has become highly valuable for training artificial intelligence models as tech companies exhaust free information available on the open internet
• ▪A nascent micro-market has emerged where failed or bankrupt startups sell off internal communications, emails, and operational data to AI firms to raise cash for creditors
• ▪Holger Mueller of Constellation Research stated that bankruptcies represent rare opportunities for AI model makers to acquire internal enterprise operational data

Bankruptcy auction bidding competition

• ▪Google outbid the artificial intelligence training data company Mercor, which submitted a final competing bid of $7.5 million for the Spirit Airlines dataset
• ▪During the competitive auction, Google initially bid $5 million, Mercor countered with $5.2 million, and Mercor offered $7 million to obtain the raw data before anonymization

Internal business data contents

• ▪The transaction excludes Spirit Airlines' passenger profiles, credit card information, and loyalty program records, which remain outside the purchase
• ▪The acquired Spirit Airlines dataset contains approximately 100 million company emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams chats, and 30 million lines of code
• ▪Google and court filings stated that the acquired data will be rigorously scrubbed of all personally identifiable information by a third-party service provider before receipt
• ▪The Spirit Airlines dataset includes operational records such as 1.2 million fuel slips, 787,452 parts purchase records, and details on 763,000 flights