Google purchases airline data to train artificial intelligence (AI)

Google won an auction to acquire internal data from bankrupt Spirit Airlines for $10 million. The company plans to use the data to develop its products and train AI models, Reuters reports.

Spirit ceased operations in May 2026. As part of the liquidation process, its corporate data was separated into an individual asset and put up for sale alongside the company’s other assets.

For comparison, Spirit’s former headquarters sold for $93.25 million, 22 slots at LaGuardia Airport for $58.5 million, and a hangar in Detroit for $18 million. Google offered $10 million for the corporate data, outbidding AI company Mercor, which had submitted an offer of $7.5 million.

The dataset is substantial in scale. It includes approximately 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, 7.2 billion records of competitors’ flights, 7.5 billion passenger transaction records, operational, financial and employee data, as well as around 30 million lines of software code, models and algorithms. According to Aviation Business News, personally identifiable information must be removed before the data is transferred to Google. A separate database of passenger profiles and the loyalty programme are excluded from the deal.

The use of data and other digital assets as sources of value is not new to the aviation industry. In 2020, United Airlines raised $6.8 billion using assets associated with its MileagePlus loyalty programme as collateral. The collateral included the programme’s intellectual property and member data.

In the same year, Delta Airlines raised $9 billion against assets associated with its SkyMiles programme. In the financing documents, SkyMiles customer data was specifically included as part of the intellectual property pledged as collateral. However, these were not dataset sales like the Spirit transaction, but rather the use of digital assets and their associated cash flows to secure financing.

At the same time, not every accumulated dataset can be turned into a liquid asset. During the bankruptcy of Toysmart, an American online toy retailer, regulators restricted the sale of its customer database because of the company's previous privacy commitments. Similar restrictions arose in 2015 when RadioShack, a major American electronics retailer, went bankrupt and planned to transfer the personal data of millions of customers to a buyer.

These cases demonstrate that the value of data depends not only on its volume and uniqueness, but also on the rights governing its use and transfer. As a result, corporate data inventory and valuation are gradually becoming an integral part of corporate asset management. Companies need to understand what data they hold, what rights apply to it, where it generates economic value, and which model of utilisation is most effective.