The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said Tuesday that Google agreed to additional privacy protections in its planned purchase of employee data from defunct Spirit Airlines. Reuters, in a report by David Shepardson, said the deal is worth $10 million and is intended to help train AI models.
In a Nov. 10 statement, AFA said objections to the sale were withdrawn in bankruptcy court Monday night after the new terms were reached. Reuters said the agreement clears the way for a bankruptcy judge to consider the deal next week. The public calendar of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York lists a hearing on the sale of deidentified data in Spirit Aviation Holdings’ Chapter 11 case, No. 25-11897, for Nov. 17, 2026.
AFA said the revised terms exclude health and medical information, records related to drug and alcohol testing, disciplinary records, records from safety programs, and identification documents. It said the remaining data will go through a more rigorous de-identification process under the international standard ISO 27559, rather than a U.S. standard Spirit had intended to use, and will be reviewed by an independent verification agent chosen in consultation with AFA and other unions. Google is prohibited from trying to re-identify the data and must process it in a secure environment and treat it as confidential, the union said. Reuters, citing the union, reported the same core terms, including the exclusion of health and medical information.
Google won an auction in August for data from emails, spreadsheets and calendars, as well as marketing, productivity and operations data, Reuters reported. Spirit halted operations in May. AFA said it objected after a mid-August court filing and was later joined by several other airline unions.
Last month, 121 members of Congress led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Rep. Steven Horsford, a Nevada Democrat, raised concerns about the proposed sale, AFA said. Reuters described the group as about 120 lawmakers and said they warned the sale would include 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages and other employee records.
Google did not immediately comment on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Last month the company said: “We are not looking to buy any personal information from Spirit. The information will either be completely excluded or will be de-identified by an independent third party before Google receives any data.” Reuters also said a privacy ombudsman last month recommended that a U.S. bankruptcy judge approve the deal after excluding passenger personal information from 97 million Spirit customers.