There are several kinds of bankruptcy. One is the kind you're thinking of, where whatever's left is divided up and given to creditors. Another provides a sort of time-out for the business to work its problems out without creditors hassling them. When a business "emerges" from bankruptcy it's a successful conclusion of that second kind.

There are more kinds.

It is "regulated like crazy", by corrupted politicians like David Samson.

United even created his own route from Newark to SC so he can fly home...

In January 2015, federal prosecutors subpoenaed records related to Samson's personal travel, and his relationship with Newark Liberty International Airport's largest carrier, United Airlines, as part of a probe into a flight route initiated by United while Samson was chairman of the transportation agency that operates the region's airports. The route provided non-stop service between Newark and Columbia Metropolitan Airport in South Carolina, located about 50 miles from a home where Samson often spent weekends. United halted the non-stop route on April 1, 2014, three days after Samson resigned from the position. Samson referred to the twice-a-week route — with a flight leaving Newark on Thursday evenings and another returning on Monday mornings — as “the chairman’s flight.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Samson_(lawyer)

> Samson was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine and sentenced to a year of home confinement at the South Carolina vacation house that was subject of the crime

This really shouldn't amaze me anymore, but it still does. The justice system is a very different place depending on the amount of money and power you have.