Google has bought deidentified data and software code from the now-defunct Spirit Airlines for US$10 million.
The US low-cost carrier (LCC) collapsed in May after filing for bankruptcy for a second time last summer. Google acquired the data as part of an auction of Spirit assets, outbidding rivals including AI firm Mercor.
Parent company Alphabet say Google will use the information to train AI models and for further product development. The purchase comes a week after Google Cloud signed a five-year deal with Ryanair for aviation enterprise AI.
Included in the data are 500 million Microsoft Teams messages and 100 million employee emails, as well as a wealth of pricing, marketing, and competitor information. The set does not include Spirit’s 97.5 million customer profiles, nor their 50.2 million loyalty programme records.
In a statement, Google promised that all data will be “rigorously scrubbed of any personally identifiable information by a third party before receipt”.
When Spirit shut down operations on 2 May, it laid off 17,000 employees, having amassed more than US$8.1 billion in debt. Over forty years, the airline’s no-frills service and bright yellow planes became a staple of American aviation.
Google purchasing Spirit’s data demonstrates the increasing importance of digital as well as physical assets. While the industry might have given more attention to the fate of the airline’s 131 aircraft, or its airport slots, Google have hoovered up an extremely valuable arsenal of data. As AI becomes more dominant in aviation, such data will only become more important, as large language models (LLMs) require significant volumes to train their outputs.
As Google and Ryanair’s partnership takes off, this information from Spirit will help advance the tech company’s ambitions in the aviation sector. Additionally, the data could support the development of Google’s AI Mode: in November last year, the company said they wanted to launch in-model travel booking, including for flights.
Join us at World Aviation Festival 2026 to discuss the ongoing importance of data, analytics, and AI in aviation.
For more like this, see:
