News and analysis
The Spirit Airlines data auction, explained
In the Spirit Aviation Holdings chapter 11 case, number 25-11897 (SHL), the debtors gave notice of an auction of a data asset they called the Deidentified Data. As of 2026-11-04, the auction notice names Google LLC as the selected bidder at $10,000,000, with Mercor.io Corporation as the alternate bidder at $7,500,000, subject to a court order. No sale order had been entered.
Case at a glance
| Record | As the notice states |
|---|---|
| Case | 25-11897 (SHL) |
| Court | United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York |
| Judge | Honorable Sean H. Lane |
| Asset name | Deidentified Data |
The case number, the court, and the judge are the ones in the auction-results notice. The asset name is the name that notice uses. Bid amounts and hearing dates are in the timeline, each tied to the document that states them.
Timeline
Each row is one statement from a document. A filing date is the day the docket records the paper. A date stated in the document is a day the paper itself recites, which can be earlier than the filing that repeats it. Read the parenthetical in the date cell before you treat two rows as the same event.
| Date | What the document says | Document |
|---|---|---|
| August 29, 2025 (date stated in the document) | The auction-results notice states that the debtors each filed a voluntary chapter 11 petition in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on August 29, 2025. | Notice of auction results (ECF 1463) |
| June 22, 2026 (date stated in the document) | That notice states that on June 22, 2026 the court entered the bidding procedures order, ECF 1213. The date is the notice's recital of the order. | Notice of auction results (ECF 1463) |
| August 14, 2026 (date stated in the document) | The notice states that the debtors conducted a virtual auction of the Deidentified Data on August 14, 2026. | Notice of auction results (ECF 1463) |
| August 14, 2026 (date stated in the document) | The notice states that the debtors selected Google LLC as the successful bidder at $10,000,000 and Mercor.io Corporation as the alternate bidder at $7,500,000, subject to entry of a court order. | Notice of auction results (ECF 1463) |
| August 17, 2026 (filing date) | On August 17, 2026 the debtors filed a notice attaching a proposed order that would authorize a sale of the Deidentified Data. The filing is a proposed order, not an entered sale order. | Notice of proposed order (ECF 1469) |
| August 19, 2026 (date stated in the document) | The August 14 notice scheduled a hearing to consider approval of the sale for 11:00 a.m. on August 19, 2026, before Judge Sean H. Lane. Later notices adjourned that hearing. | Notice of auction results (ECF 1463) |
| September 3, 2026 (filing date) | micro1 Inc. filed a notice, dated September 3, 2026, of its intent to submit a competing bid of $12,500,000 in cash for the Deidentified Data. The notice is not an order selecting that bid. | micro1 notice of intent |
| October 9, 2026 (filing date) | The debtors' October 9, 2026 notice states that the sale hearing was adjourned and will take place at 11:00 a.m. on November 6, 2026, before Judge Sean H. Lane. | Notice of adjournment (ECF 1695) |
| November 4, 2026 (filing date) | The docket index lists ECF 1779, filed November 4, 2026, as a notice of adjournment of the hearing on the sale of the Deidentified Data. | Docket index (ECF 1779) |
| November 4, 2026 (filing date) | No sale order was on the docket reviewed on November 4, 2026. The latest entries are an adjournment notice, fee statements, certificates of mailing, and appearance papers. | Docket index |
The bidding-procedures date is a recital in the auction notice. The proposed-order row is a filing of a proposed order. A later notice of intent is a bid a party said it intended to submit. An adjournment row speaks only for the paper it cites. None of those rows is an entered sale order.
What the notice describes
The debtors gave the asset a name, Deidentified Data, and the bill of sale attached to the auction notice describes what that name covers. The description is the debtors' description. It is not a finding about whether any particular file was in fact stripped of personal details.
The bill of sale attached to the auction notice describes an asset called the Deidentified Data. It includes productivity and collaboration data (email, calendar, chat, documents, and related files), core business systems data (including employee behavior and productivity, revenue and yield management, and aircraft operations), workflow and process data, and software the seller owns. The assets schedule marks email, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams as included, and it prints counts of 100,000,000 emails, 80,000 email accounts, 17,082,644 OneDrive items, 20,577,677 SharePoint items, and 500,000,000 Teams items.
The counts in that paragraph are the counts printed on the assets schedule in the debtor filing. They are not estimates from a news story, and they are not a measure of what a smaller company would have in email or chat. Included rows and excluded rows sit on the same schedule. The next section is the exclusion side.
The bill of sale attached to the auction notice says the parties intend the transaction under section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code.
What the bill of sale excludes
- The bill of sale says the assets do not include personal data, and they do not include the seller's customer list.
- The bill of sale says the assets do not include privileged materials.
- The assets schedule marks customer profiles (97,500,000 passengers), loyalty records, and Free Spirit membership as not included.
The schedule's "not included" marks are part of the same debtor filing as the included counts. Customer profiles, loyalty records, and membership records are on the excluded side of that schedule. The bill of sale also states two exclusions in its own text: personal data and the seller's customer list, and privileged materials. A reader should keep the schedule and the bill of sale together. One does not cancel the other.
Delivery, in the bill of sale, is described as a copy in de-identified form after a de-identification agent. The notice does not name that agent.
Objections on the docket
micro1's September 3, 2026 notice states that the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA filed a limited objection asking that a sale order exclude flight attendant information or condition the sale on protections for confidential employee data, that the machinists' and transport workers' unions joined that objection, and that Springshot asked for its intellectual property to be excluded.
Those are the objectors' requests as the notice of intent describes them. The notice itself is not a ruling on the objections, and the record volumes in play are the ones on the assets schedule.
Privacy and the statutes
The docket lists Lucy L. Thomson as consumer privacy ombudsman.
General information only. This is not legal, tax or financial advice.
Two sections of the Bankruptcy Code are quoted below because the bill of sale cites section 363, and because section 332 is the section that provides for a consumer privacy ombudsman. The quotes are the statute's words. They are not a conclusion about this case.
The trustee, after notice and a hearing, may use, sell, or lease, other than in the ordinary course of business, property of the estate, except that if the debtor in connection with offering a product or a service discloses to an individual a policy prohibiting the transfer of personally identifiable information about individuals to persons that are not affiliated with the debtor and if such policy is in effect on the date of the commencement of the case, then the trustee may not sell or lease personally identifiable information to any person unless— (A) such sale or such lease is consistent with such policy; or (B) after appointment of a consumer privacy ombudsman in accordance with section 332, and after notice and a hearing, the court approves such sale or such lease— (i) giving due consideration to the facts, circumstances, and conditions of such sale or such lease; and (ii) finding that no showing was made that such sale or such lease would violate applicable nonbankruptcy law.
If a hearing is required under section 363(b)(1)(B), the court shall order the United States trustee to appoint, not later than 7 days before the commencement of the hearing, 1 disinterested person (other than the United States trustee) to serve as the consumer privacy ombudsman in the case and shall require that notice of such hearing be timely given to such ombudsman.
For the general rule, read selling company data in bankruptcy.
What the court has not approved
No sale order had been entered.
The auction notice states that the selection is subject to entry of a court order. The August 17 filing attaches a proposed order, and the timeline records that filing as a proposed order. A selected bid in the notice is not an entered sale order.
If you are closing
A court-supervised sale of one airline's data is not a template for a private license, and it is not a price for an 80-person company.
The bids in the timeline are bids in this case. They are not an offer to your company, and they are not a market rate you can paste onto a different set of files. Headcount, the systems, the exclusions, and the contract are a different conversation. Most very small companies will not qualify for a private license.
What a license never includes is our exclusion list for Vetrix Data Licensing. That list is our program. It is not the debtors' sale process, and it is not a description of the Deidentified Data.
If you are closing the company, start with how to wind down a company. The order of a wind-down is staff, records, and the shutdown. It is not the sequence in the timeline above.
A company already in a formal insolvency process can read bankruptcy or an assignment for the benefit of creditors.
Buyer categories for a private license are in who buys company data for AI. A buyer category is not a bidder in this case.
Other filings are under News and analysis.
Another explainer is Employee privacy when companies sell data to AI.
Another explainer is What happened to MicroAcquire.
Another explainer is Why AI companies buy Slack and email data.
Related
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- Is it legal?
What GDPR, US rules, and bankruptcy law say about licensing company data.
- What's shared
Which records can be licensed, which details never leave, and what you approve.
- Guides
How-tos and lists for closing a company, selling one, or licensing its records.
- Who buys company data
Four kinds of AI data buyer, what each wants, and what a seller should check first.
- Bankruptcy or ABC
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- Research
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- Systems
What common business tools do to company data after you cancel, including each vendor deletion window.
Questions about the Spirit data auction
Did a court approve the Spirit Airlines data sale?
No sale order had been entered. The auction notice can name a selected bidder and still say the sale needs a court order. The docket index runs through November 4, 2026. A hearing date in a notice is the date that notice set. It is not, by itself, an entered order approving a sale.
What records did the Spirit data auction cover?
The asset schedule attached to the debtors' notice is the list. It includes email, calendar, chat, and documents, and it prints counts of 100,000,000 emails, 80,000 email accounts, and 500,000,000 Teams items among the included rows. The bill of sale says the assets do not include personal data, and they do not include the seller's customer list. The bill of sale says the assets do not include privileged materials. The assets schedule marks customer profiles (97,500,000 passengers), loyalty records, and Free Spirit membership as not included.
Who did the Spirit auction notice name, and for how much?
The auction notice names Google LLC as the selected bidder at $10,000,000, with Mercor.io Corporation as the alternate bidder at $7,500,000, subject to a court order. micro1 Inc. later filed a notice of intent to submit a competing bid of $12,500,000. That filing is a later notice of intent, not the auction notice's selected bid. The amounts are the amounts printed in those filings.
What is a consumer privacy ombudsman doing in the Spirit case?
The docket lists a consumer privacy ombudsman. The role is set out in 11 U.S.C. §332, which is quoted and linked in the privacy section. The statute says a court orders the United States trustee to appoint one disinterested person when a hearing is required under section 363(b)(1)(B). Whether the proposed sale meets that statute is a question for the court.
Does the Spirit auction mean a smaller company can sell its customer lists?
No. The filings describe one debtor's asset, with the exclusions they state, under court supervision. A customer list is a different thing from de-identified operational records. Our program keeps customer and staff details out of a licensed copy. A smaller company's situation is the wind-down guide and the eligibility rules.
Sources
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Notice of auction results and scheduled hearing for the Deidentified Data (ECF 1463). Checked 2026-11-04
- BK Alerts. Spirit Aviation Holdings, Inc. docket 25-11897, entries through November 4, 2026. Checked 2026-11-04
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Notice of micro1 Inc.'s intent to submit a competing bid. Checked 2026-11-04
- U.S. Government Publishing Office. 11 U.S.C. §332, United States Code, 2023 edition. Checked 2026-11-04
- U.S. Government Publishing Office. 11 U.S.C. §363, United States Code, 2023 edition. Checked 2026-11-04
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Notice of proposed order authorizing the sale of the Deidentified Data (ECF 1469). Checked 2026-11-04
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Notice of adjournment of hearing on the sale of the Deidentified Data (ECF 1695). Checked 2026-11-04