Google Snags Spirit Airlines Data for $10 Million

Google has made a significant acquisition in the world of data, buying up the remaining assets of Spirit Airlines for $10 million. The sale includes a vast amount of internal business data, including over 100 million emails and 500 million Microsoft Teams messages. However, the company clarified that it is not acquiring customer or credit card information.

The dataset is enormous, with court filings listing 30 million lines of code, development metadata, software models, revenue data, aircraft operations, employee productivity, audit and fraud material, marketing campaigns, HR files, board presentations, and budget documents. Additionally, the sale includes pricing from 7.2 billion competitor flights and roughly 7.5 billion passenger transaction records stretching back to 2008.

But what's not included in the sale is customer list data, including individual traveler spend aggregated by year, which can be sold to buyers in the hospitality or travel business. The auction was competitive, with AI data firm Mercor offering $7 million if it could take the raw data first and anonymize it itself.