The union representing American Airlines pilots asked a bankruptcy court on Tuesday to block Spirit Airlines’ $10 million sale of its internal data to Google, citing risks to pilot privacy and to aviation safety.
The Allied Pilots Association said in its objection that more than 700 of its members once worked at Spirit and would be affected by the sale. Spirit shut down earlier this year, and Google won its data with a $10 million bid, saying the material could be used to improve its products and A.I. models. The bankruptcy auction was held on Aug. 14, according to a review of the case docket.
Crew members take part in voluntary safety and training programs on the understanding that what they share will stay confidential, the filing said. The sale, it said, would disclose pilots’ “confidential employment and training related information” and “threatens to have a chilling effect across all commercial airlines.”
To permit that information to later be sold to a third-party without ensuring complete deidentification and satisfactory confidentiality protections will serve to threaten the voluntary safety and training programs that provide the backbone of the commercial aviation industry in the United States.
The union, which represents American pilots, asked the court to reject the proposed sale until concerns over crew members’ data are “satisfactorily addressed.”
Google has said the sale covers Spirit’s internal data and custom software, but not customer or credit card information, and that the data would be scrubbed of identifying details.
The objection joins ones already filed by the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents Spirit’s pilots, and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents its flight attendants. As of Sept. 11, six objections, a consumer privacy ombudsman’s report and notice of a $12.5 million competing bid were on file, and the sale hearing had been postponed three times, according to the docket review.
Spirit declined to comment. Google did not respond to a request for comment.