The union representing former Spirit Airlines flight attendants is challenging a proposed $10 million sale of the airline’s internal records to Google, which plans to use the data for artificial intelligence training.
A judge was expected to approve the deal on August 19 but postponed the decision until September 9 to hear the union’s concerns. The records reportedly include around 100 million work emails, 500 million staff chat messages, as well as payroll, training and disciplinary files.
Spirit says employees’ names and personal information will be removed before the data is transferred. However, the union argues that anonymisation may not be enough, as messages could still reveal who filed complaints, faced disciplinary action or discussed workplace issues.
The union is seeking to have all flight attendant records excluded from the sale or receive privacy protections similar to those provided for passenger information. The court is expected to revisit the proposed deal on September 9.
