Several US pilots’ unions, backed by lobby group Airlines 4 America (A4A), are opposing the inclusion of confidential aviation safety information in Google’s USD10 million acquisition of Spirit Airlines’ internal business data, warning that the transaction could undermine voluntary safety reporting programmes across the industry.

Separately, the SkyWest InFlight Association, representing approximately 5,000 flight attendants at SkyWest Airlines, sought permission to submit arguments concerning employee privacy, warning that anonymised operational records covering approximately 4,600 crew members and over five million crew pairings could still allow individual employees to be identified.