Doug Kreuzkamp was shocked when news outlets reported that Google won an auction to buy a huge amount of operational data as part of Spirit Airlines’ bankruptcy proceedings. Kreuzkamp founded Springshot in 2011, a proprietary platform used by hundreds of airports to improve airline efficiency and solve logistics problems. Springshot powered Spirit’s technology stack for the last three years, right up to the “very last flight,” Kreuzkamp told Ars. Yet his company got no notice when Spirit prepared to auction off a massive dataset that he thinks likely improperly includes a substantial amount of data and intellectual property (IP) that Springshot owns—not Spirit.

In a limited objection, Springshot argued that Spirit’s sale agreement does not clearly identify what data is being sold. It vaguely references categories including “productivity and collaboration data,” “core business systems and business application data,” and “workflow and process data.” Springshot urged the court to pause the sale until a transparent forensic process establishes that none of the data Google is grabbing is owned by third parties.

“Bankruptcy cannot become the new land grab for AI,” Kreuzkamp told Ars. “The possession of IP is not ownership.” Google declined to discuss the objections and said it acquired part of an enterprise dataset from Spirit Airlines to help improve its products and AI models. It said it would not receive personal information.

The International Aero Engines LLC and the IAE International Aero Engines AG also objected, saying the dataset might include proprietary commercial, technical, and financial data. They cited confidentiality provisions in Spirit agreements that appear to have been ignored. In August, Europe’s largest airline, Ryanair, announced a five-year partnership with Google to share operational data and improve Gemini Enterprise tools.