US court delays hearing on Google's purchase of Spirit Airlines data as union objects
Hearing delayed to September 9
A U.S. bankruptcy court on Tuesday delayed to September 9 a hearing to approve the sale of internal business data from bankrupt Spirit Airlines to Alphabet's Google for $10 million.
The adjournment of the hearing, which was initially scheduled for Wednesday, comes as the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), which represents Spirit cabin crew, filed an objection to the sale.
Union raises concerns over employee data
The data on the block includes Spirit Airlines' employee emails, Microsoft Teams messages, spreadsheets, and calendars, as well as marketing, productivity, and operations data. Google plans to use the data for product development and training its AI models.
The AFA said it is seeking restrictions on the sale of flight attendant employee data and further protections for employees if the sale is approved.
Spirit has said the records would be de-identified, containing no customer information or personally identifiable information.
However, the union said that given the sale agreement requires links across datasets to be preserved, it had concerns that information about individuals or small groups could potentially be reconstructed.
Spirit asset sales continue in bankruptcy
Spirit is selling off assets in bankruptcy after shutting down its business in May due to high debt and high fuel costs.
