New York, United States: A US bankruptcy court has postponed a hearing on Google’s proposed $10 million purchase of internal business data from bankrupt Spirit Airlines after the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), which represents Spirit’s cabin crew, objected to the sale. The hearing, originally scheduled for August 19, has been moved to September 9, giving the court additional time to consider the union’s concerns over the transfer and proposed use of employee-related data. The transaction remains subject to court approval.
Google won the bankruptcy auction for the data after offering $10 million, beating AI data company Mercor, which bid $7.5 million. The proposed transaction covers part of Spirit’s internal enterprise dataset, including employee emails, Microsoft Teams messages, calendars, spreadsheets, documents, marketing material, productivity information, operations data and software. Reports citing bankruptcy filings said the archive contains about 100 million emails and 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, while other reporting has put the broader records at more than 175,000 employee records and about 30 million lines of code.
Google has said the acquisition is intended for product development and AI-model training. A Google spokesperson said, “We acquired part of an enterprise dataset from Spirit Airlines, which can be helpful in improving our products and AI models.” Google also said, “We will not receive any personal information from this dataset. Any data we receive will be rigorously scrubbed of any personally identifiable information by a third party before receipt.”
The proposed safeguards are central to the dispute. Spirit’s bankruptcy filings indicate that the data being sold is to be de-identified before the transaction is completed and is not supposed to contain customer information or personally identifiable information. Google has also clarified that it is not acquiring Spirit’s aircraft, routes or customer business as part of the transaction; the proposed purchase concerns the specified internal business-data assets.
The AFA-CWA’s objection adds a labor and privacy dimension to the proposed sale because the dataset contains communications and records generated by Spirit employees during their work. The union has been an active creditor representative in Spirit’s bankruptcy proceedings and has continued filing claims and motions to protect flight attendants’ employment-related rights. AFA’s public Spirit resources show that the union filed an omnibus bankruptcy claim in July covering accrued vacation, sick leave, healthcare costs and other employee claims, while earlier filings addressed WARN Act and other liabilities.
Spirit entered its latest Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings on August 29, 2025, and ultimately ceased operations on May 2, 2026, after its restructuring efforts failed amid severe financial pressure and higher fuel costs. AFA said Spirit’s shutdown followed a sharp deterioration in its financial position after geopolitical tensions pushed fuel prices higher. Spirit’s bankruptcy estate is now liquidating remaining assets, making the Google data transaction part of the broader wind-down process.
The case is significant because it places a large body of real-world corporate information including communications, operational records and software at the center of an AI-data transaction. Google’s $10 million bid values the internal dataset as a potential resource for developing products and AI systems, while the flight attendants’ union is challenging the proposed transfer and seeking greater protection for workers whose information and communications are contained within the records. The court’s September 9 hearing will determine whether the proposed sale can proceed.
