Google Snags Spirit Airlines Data for $10 Million

Google has made headlines recently by purchasing business data from defunct Spirit Airlines for $10 million. The proposed purchase includes employee emails, chats, and messaging data, as well as data related to the airlines' finance and accounting systems, aircraft operations, revenue, website analytics, and loyalty program.

The data will be deidentified by a third party before being transferred to Google, which means that elements that could be linked to consumers will be removed or transformed. According to Google spokesperson, 'We acquired part of an enterprise dataset from Spirit Airlines, which can be helpful in improving our products and AI models.'

Industry experts believe that the data will provide a unique opportunity for Google to understand the inner workings of the airline industry. Eric Léopold, founder and managing director of Swiss travel consultancy Threedot, said 'That is great training data, something that they could have received from their own scanning of emails but not legally.'

The purchase also gives Google access to proprietary airline data, which can be used to teach its AI models. Tim O'Neil-Dunne, principal at travel and aviation consultancy T2Impact, called it a 'unique opportunity' for Google to understand the inner workings of the airline industry.