{
  "id": 1681861,
  "title": "Google buys crashed airline Spirit’s data at auction, because AI",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/18/google-buys-crashed-airline-spirits-data-at-auction-because-ai-1681861",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-18T06:43:06.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Register Science",
    "slug": "the-register-science",
    "url": "https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/08/18/google-buys-crashed-airline-spirits-data-at-auction-because-ai/5288962"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Google has purchased the data of Spirit, the failed US airline, after it was auctioned off at a recent sale. Spirit's financial struggles were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, leading to losses and the eventual shutdown of the airline in May 2026. The low-cost carrier entered liquidation, allowing for the sale of its assets to raise funds and settle debts. Among the assets up for auction was a vast amount of deidentified data, which Google successfully bid for and acquired for a mere $10 million. This data includes 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, 17 million OneDrive files, 20.5 million SharePoint files, over 30 million customer service calls, and more than 15 million customer service chat records.\n\nGoogle also acquired over 600,000 ServiceNow tickets, 13.7 million active email addresses from Oracle's Responsys marketing application, details of 11 million in-flight Wi-Fi sales, and operational data encompassing over 763,000 flights, five million crew pairings, more than 1.2 million fuel slips, and records of 787,452 parts purchased. The tech giant reportedly purchased the data to enhance its AI services. While the underbidder was a data provider for AI model training, Spirit's data has proven valuable to AI companies. The Register recently reported that AI experts are increasingly recognizing that specific-field knowledge models are more useful than general large language models. Google may have found a basis for an aviation operations model or beneficial data for various AI applications. Google has assured that the data was deidentified before being auctioned, and it plans to remove any identifiable personal information found in the data trove. Read the full report with caution as Google awaits evidence of potential errors that could result in the inadvertent inclusion of personal information in their AI models.",
  "summary": "$10 million buys over 100 million emails, 30 million recorded phone calls, reams of stuff from Teams, Oracle, and SAP",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}