What happened. In the bankruptcy of Spirit Airlines, which stopped flying in May 2026, Google bought a corporate data set for $10 million. It contains more than 100 million emails, hundreds of millions of Microsoft Teams messages, more than 30 million lines of code, some 7.5 billion passenger transactions spanning about twenty years, and 7.2 billion competitor fare records. Google’s statement is a single sentence: the data set “could help improve our products and AI models”. Personal data will be stripped out by a third party before transfer; passenger profiles and loyalty records are excluded.
The bigger picture. In the AI race the open internet is either exhausted or in court. The new scarcity is internal records that show how a company really works: which decision was taken in which order, which fare was set against which rival. That is why liquidation tables are discovering a new asset class. For a century they knew how to turn aircraft, brands and slots into cash. Now they can also sell what a company said to itself. Google’s $10 million is one of the first price tags in that market.
For executives: Your team’s Teams and email archive is no longer just a communications record; it is a transferable asset. Reread your data retention policy and your supplier contracts with that in mind.