When Spirit Airlines ceased operations in May, the company left behind around 17,000 former employees and approximately $8.1 billion in debt. In addition, there were decades’ worth of office documents, with Google facing storage and processing costs of $10 million for this data.

According to materials submitted to the Southern District of New York bankruptcy court on August 14, Google acquired the bankrupt airline’s corporate data and software code at auction. The acquired data includes roughly 100 million emails, 500 million messages and collaboration records from Microsoft Teams, as well as documents related to revenue management, aircraft operations, audits, and fraud investigations. The package also contains over 175,000 employee records dating back to 1986. Google offered $10 million for this package, outbidding Mercor.io, a company specializing in AI-powered recruitment, which valued the data at $7.5 million and was named the backup buyer in case the deal falls through.

Google stated that these materials could be used to improve its own products and artificial intelligence systems. It was noted that before the data is transferred, a third party will remove all personal information. The statement also emphasized that the package does not include consumer data: there are no profiles of Spirit’s 97.5 million passengers, records of 52.4 million loyalty program members, or information on 740,000 co-branded cardholders.

De-identifying such a large volume of data is a complex task, especially considering that 100 million emails were written by employees who never expected their mailboxes to be sold after their employer’s liquidation. The package contains a significant number of payroll and HR files, and the effectiveness of data cleansing on this scale remains uncertain.

The deal has not yet been finalized. The court will consider approval of the sale on August 19. Until the judge’s decision is made, the future of Spirit Airlines’ digital assets remains unclear.