Google won Spirit Airlines' bankruptcy auction for its deidentified enterprise data on August 14, 2026 at $10.0 million, with Mercor.io the alternate bidder at $7.5 million (Dkt. 1463). The sale still needed court approval after the privacy ombudsman's review.
What was sold
Enterprise records, not customer files: corporate email and SharePoint, core business systems such as CRM and revenue management, and workflow and process data, deidentified by Tonic.ai before transfer, according to the ombudsman's supplemental report (Dkt. 1684).
What was cut
Customer profiles, Free Spirit loyalty data, savers club data, social media and survey data were never in the package. After the ombudsman's review the parties also excluded the consumer transaction systems, so no data on children or teens reaches the buyer.
Why the privacy ombudsman mattered
Section 363(b)(1) limits a sale of personally identifiable information that the debtor's privacy policy forbade, and section 332 brings in a consumer privacy ombudsman to review it. The ombudsman filed on 8 September and 5 October 2026 and concluded approval would be appropriate once the scope narrowed.
What it means for a smaller estate
The operating record of a company, its mail, drives and business systems, is now an asset a trustee, liquidator or assignee can market. A company with 50 or more staff and three years of records usually lands between $100K and $2M. Proceeds go to the estate or the payee the order names.
Where the case stands
The sale hearing was adjourned more than once, most recently past 6 November 2026. Check the Spirit Airlines docket for the current order before citing an outcome.