Between September 28 and October 12, 2026, the debtors and other parties added roughly 40 entries to the Spirit Aviation Holdings docket before Judge Sean H. Lane in the Southern District of New York. Many were certificates of service and professional fee filings, which this update omits. The substantive activity clustered around three asset dispositions that sit at very different stages.

The sale of deidentified enterprise data to Google LLC drew a supplemental report from the Consumer Privacy Ombudsman on October 5 recommending approval, then another adjournment of the sale hearing on October 9, this time to November 6. On the same day the debtors filed a reply and a supporting declaration on their motion to enforce the HFS Sale Order against CSDS Asset Management LLC. In those papers the debtors allege that the dispute has grown from one defaulted aircraft into four, and state that Spirit terminated the asset purchase agreement as of October 9. CSDS has not responded on the docket, and the Court has made no findings on any of it. The third disposition, the full flight simulators, is the simplest: SIM International B.V. submitted the only qualified bid, at $8.3 million, and the debtors cancelled the auction.

The debtors ran a virtual auction for the deidentified data on August 14, 2026 under the June 22 Bidding Procedures Order (ECF No. 1213). Google LLC emerged as the successful bidder at $10.0 million, with Mercor.io Corporation designated as the alternate bidder at $7.5 million (Dkt. 1463). A third AI training data company, micro1, later filed a notice of intent to submit a competing and superior bid (ECF No. 1556).

As originally scoped, the package covered enterprise data derived from approximately 190 million Spirit flights: productivity and collaboration data such as corporate email and SharePoint repositories, core business systems including CRM and revenue management, and workflow and process data. Debtors' counsel told the Ombudsman that the original categories included eight systems with multiple processing purposes, some of which may have involved personal data. The report lists the systems that might include customer data as PNR revenue transactions, refunds, inflight purchases, timecard information, WiFi sales and corporate email.

The objection deadline passed on August 17. The objectors are largely labor groups and vendors. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA filed a limited objection (ECF No. 1489) and a supplement (ECF No. 1656), and the Professional Airline Flight Control Association, the IAM and TWU Local 570 joined it. The Air Line Pilots Association filed a limited objection (ECF No. 1558) and a supplement on September 25 (Dkt. 1658). International Aero Engines and the Navitaire and Amadeus parties each paired a limited objection with a cross-motion to enforce confidentiality agreements (ECF Nos. 1538, 1602). Springshot, Inc. objected on vendor-data grounds (ECF No. 1508).

The Consumer Privacy Ombudsman filed her original report under section 332(b) on September 8, 2026 (ECF No. 1581). The supplemental report filed October 5 (Dkt. 1684) incorporates that report and addresses what changed in the four weeks since. The answer is a materially narrower transaction. Following discussions among the debtors, Google and the Ombudsman, the parties revised the scope of consumer personal data in the sale, pulled the structured passenger databases out entirely and engaged Tonic.ai as an independent deidentification agent for the unstructured data that remains.

The Ombudsman concludes that, from a privacy perspective, approval of the sale would be appropriate. In her assessment the potential privacy losses or costs to consumers have been eliminated or mitigated, and the sale would not violate applicable non-bankruptcy law. The report puts the affected population at roughly 97 million consumers who gave Spirit their personal data to book travel.

What comes out of the sale

According to the report, the debtors and Google agreed that the following datasets will not be transferred to Google in any form, deidentified or otherwise. The Ombudsman reports that she was given a draft revised asset schedule reflecting the change and was assured that any system designated as excluded will stay excluded, even though the schedule remains subject to revision.

Source: CPO Supplemental Report, Dkt. 1684, at 4 n.7 and 5.

The report also records what was never in the package: customer insight databases, customer profiles, Free Spirit member data, savers club data, social media data and survey data. No biometric or geolocation data is included. Because the consumer transaction systems are excluded, the Ombudsman reports that data on children and teens will not reach Google, and she treats that risk as eliminated.

How the remaining data is handled

The debtors and Google voluntarily adopted the deidentification standard in the California Consumer Privacy Act (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.140(m)), as debtors' counsel described to the Ombudsman in an August 5, 2026 letter. Under that standard the parties take reasonable measures to ensure the data cannot be associated with a natural person, the purchaser publicly commits to maintain and use the data without attempting reidentification, and onward transfers are contractually barred unless the recipient makes the same public commitment. The successful bid incorporates all of those requirements.

Certified deidentification is a closing condition under the sale agreement. Before the first transfer to Google, and for every transfer after it, the deidentification agent will file an affidavit with the Court certifying that the court-approved procedures were followed and that the data is deidentified, with a general description of the data. The agent is also to perform and document quality-control testing for reidentification through direct identifiers, indirect identifiers, free text, unique characteristics and record linkage. The Ombudsman adds one recommendation of her own: each certification should state the number of Spirit passengers whose personal information was detected and deidentified in the unstructured data.

The report carries a limitation that matters for the objectors. The Ombudsman expressly did not investigate whether the data or the deidentification process presents risks to employees or third parties. Her mandate under section 332 runs to consumers, and the employee and vendor questions raised by the unions and by Springshot sit outside it.

Four days after the supplement, the debtors adjourned the sale hearing again (Dkt. 1695). The hearing was originally noticed for August 19 and has now been adjourned five times (ECF Nos. 1488, 1557, 1601, 1663 and 1695). The September 28 notice moved it from September 30 to October 14 (Dkt. 1663). The notice states that the debtors continue to work with objecting parties toward a consensual resolution, including on the treatment of personally identifiable or sensitive employee information. That is the category the Ombudsman's report leaves unaddressed.

The notice, like the September 28 notice before it, provides for an evidentiary portion. Under Judge Lane's chambers rules, any party wishing to view or examine a witness during the evidentiary portion must appear in person, and no witness may be examined over Zoom. The objection deadline has passed, so the debtors' November 4 reply is the next filing to watch for how far the employee-data negotiations have progressed.

Objector filings in the period

Three objector filings landed in the window. Springshot, Inc. filed a supplemental limited objection on October 9 (Dkt. 1693). It says it has no wish to derail the sale, but contends the debtors negotiated the transaction without accounting for third-party vendor data that is not estate property, and have not shown they know where Springshot's proprietary data sits. Springshot identifies its data shared through email, Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, data its platform pushed daily to Spirit's own URLs, and Spirit's internal analyses derived from both. It has supplied sample reports and data payloads to help the debtors locate and exclude that material.

On September 29 the Allied Pilots Association filed a letter joining the AFA and ALPA objections (Dkt. 1669). On October 1 the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Professor Seema N. Patel moved for leave to participate as amici curiae in support of the AFA's supplemental objection (Dkt. 1677), attaching a 22-page proposed brief. The motion states that, to the amici's knowledge, no employer has previously tried to sell its employees' data as an asset in bankruptcy. It argues that approving the sale as proposed would create unnecessary privacy risk for Spirit employees and would give employers nationwide an incentive to collect and retain as much worker data as possible against their own potential bankruptcies.

On April 24, 2026 the Court entered the HFS Sale Order (ECF No. 991), approving the sale of 20 HFS aircraft to CSDS Asset Management LLC and, through the order's approval of the APA and its ancillary documents, the escrow agreement among Spirit, CSDS and the escrow agent. FTI Consulting served as the debtors' financial advisor on the marketing and sale.

The escrow agreement required CSDS to deposit $53,350,000 by February 12, 2026. The FTI managing director's declaration alleges that CSDS instead funded it in pieces and completed the deposit six days late, on February 18. For each aircraft subject to a buyer's default, the escrow agent pays Spirit one-twentieth of the escrow, or $2,667,500 (Escrow Agreement § 6).

On September 25 the debtors moved to enforce the HFS Sale Order and compel release of the escrow attributable to N640NK (Dkt. 1659). According to the debtors, the motion followed a September 24 email in which Spirit sent CSDS a default notice and a joint instruction letter, asked CSDS to countersign so the funds could be released without Court involvement, and said it would file a motion otherwise. The debtors say CSDS did not respond.

The debtors' two-page reply (Dkt. 1694) reports that no party, CSDS included, objected by the October 2 deadline or at any point afterward, and the October 14 amended agenda lists the motion as going forward on an uncontested basis (Dkt. 1703).

The absence of an objection is not a concession on the facts. CSDS has not conceded any default in a filing, and the Court has not yet ruled on the motion or made findings on the facts the debtors assert. Everything that follows in this section is the debtors' account, drawn from their reply and the supporting declaration.

The rest of the reply looks past the motion. The debtors allege that since the filing, CSDS has defaulted on two more aircraft. In their reading of the APA, a fourth buyer's default entitles Spirit to terminate the agreement, begin remarketing the HFS aircraft and retain the full escrow. The debtors state that they have sent CSDS notice of termination and will file a further motion seeking release of the entire escrow to the estate.

The debtors' aircraft-by-aircraft account

The supporting declaration of an FTI Consulting managing director (Dkt. 1697) sets out the debtors' version of events on each of the five aircraft that reached the closing process. The status column reflects the debtors' characterization.

Source: Farnsworth Declaration, Dkt. 1697 ¶¶ 12–17; Debtors' Reply, Dkt. 1694 ¶¶ 3–4.

The debtors' allegations are most developed on N640NK. According to the declaration, the Second CMLA, executed August 26, 2026, made CSDS's failure to meet specified conditions on that aircraft an automatic buyer's default with no grace period. The declarant states that CSDS technically accepted the aircraft on August 22 subject to one agreed open item and agreed to the purchase price calculation, wear-and-tear deductions included; that Spirit emailed CSDS repeatedly from September 15 through September 23 with closing documents; and that CSDS did not take delivery. As of the October 9 declaration, the debtors say Spirit had received neither the purchase price nor a countersigned instruction letter, and that CSDS continued to refuse delivery. CSDS has not offered its own account on the docket.

Source: Dkt. 1697 ¶¶ 10–17. Allocation of the remaining escrow is Stretto's arithmetic from the one-twentieth-per-aircraft formula; the declaration describes the remaining escrow as all funds other than those for N696NK and N691NK.

If the termination stands, 19 of the 20 HFS aircraft would remain with Spirit to remarket, one having closed. The debtors say they have notified CSDS of the termination and that the remaining HFS aircraft will be remarketed. No remarketing process has yet been filed.

The final bid deadline for the full flight simulators passed on August 3, 2026. On October 12 the debtors filed notice that, after consulting with the Consultation Parties, they selected SIM International B.V. as the successful bidder at total consideration of $8,300,000 (Dkt. 1700). No other qualified bid was received for the simulator auction lot, so the debtors cancelled the auction. The same day they filed a proposed order approving the sale free and clear of liens, claims, interests and encumbrances (Dkt. 1701), and SIM International's counsel entered an appearance (Dkt. 1702).

Source: Notice of Successful Bidder, Dkt. 1700, and Exhibit 1 (Simulator Purchase Agreement).

The objection deadline was 4:00 p.m. on October 13, and the sale hearing is set for October 14 at 11:00 a.m. by Zoom. The amended agenda lists responses as "TBD" and the matter as going forward as scheduled (Dkt. 1703).

Several smaller filings round out the period. On September 28 the Court denied Ameer Flippin's motion to stay the auction, sale process and order on the 27 EETC-financed aircraft pending a ruling on Mr. Flippin's filings (Dkt. 1661). The same day the debtors adjourned the hearing on their August 28 motion (ECF No. 1541) to enforce the final amended DIP order with respect to administrative claim carve-out (B) (Dkt. 1662); that matter does not appear on the October 14 agenda.

On September 30 the debtors applied to retain Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP as efficiency counsel nunc pro tunc to September 10, 2026 (Dkt. 1673). No objections were filed by the October 7 deadline, and the application is on the October 14 agenda as uncontested. The debtors also filed a third notice of assumption and assignment of executory contracts and unexpired leases (Dkt. 1674) and, on October 1, a notice expanding the scope of Ernst & Young's services under its retention order (Dkt. 1680).

Calendar

Source: Amended Agenda, Dkt. 1703; Dkt. 1695; Dkt. 1694.