Spirit Airlines Wants to Sell Its Data to Google. Former Flight Attendants Are Freaked Out
wired ·
After Spirit Airlines filed for bankruptcy, Google won a $10 million bid for roughly 34 years of the airline’s data, including operational, financial, employee, and communications records. Google said the dataset would not include customer data or personal information and could help improve its products and AI models, but the purchase still requires court approval. The Association of Flight Attendants, which represents 5,500 former Spirit flight attendants, objected, arguing that the sale could expose extensive sensitive employee information. Court filings list more than 175,000 employee records, tax forms, contracts, litigation files, email accounts, and hundreds of millions of Microsoft files and Teams records. Former attendants say these materials may contain medical details, domestic-violence reports, and union negotiations, and that anonymization may not prevent AI systems from reconnecting information to individuals. The union wants flight-attendant data excluded or protected at the same level as consumer data, while the hearing on the sale has been delayed to September 9. Legal experts say the dispute illustrates how existing privacy law has not caught up with the use of employee data for AI training and could influence future labor and corporate policies.
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