Google agrees to pay $10 million for Spirit digital archives
Business
Google has agreed to pay $10 million for the digital archives of Spirit Airlines (think 100 million emails, 500 million Teams messages, and employee records running back to August 1986) for $10 million.
Spirit stopped flying on May 2 and was in its second Chapter 11 case as of the article's Aug. 19, 2026 publication date.
Third party to anonymize passenger data
Spirit's data is huge: more than 7.5 billion passenger transactions, loads of code, and years of company history.
Google's acquisition has been described as a way to boost its AI projects, but don't worry, personal info like passenger profiles won't be shared.
A third party will anonymize everything first to keep privacy intact.
Fun fact: another AI company tried to buy the data but lost out in a bidding war with Google.