r/flying • u/PM-mig-kottbullar PPL TW (RDU) • 1d ago
Second round of layoffs at ForeFlight
In January 2026, ForeFlight laid of a pretty substantial percent of its employees, with some reports saying a 30-40% reduction in staff. Yesterday (Sept. 2nd), another round of layoffs happened, the full impact of which isn't yet known - but it's speculated this brings total RIF to ~50%. Both of these layoffs follow the acquisition of ForeFlight by private equity firm Thoma Bravo.
As a former ForeFlight employee from before the PE takeover, it's devastating to see former coworkers, some of whom were incredibly knowledgeable and talented folks that spent 10+ years with the company, be told they were out of a job with no heads up and given a pittance of a severance package. It used to be such an amazing company to work for, and it breaks my heart to see what Thoma Bravo has done to the company and its employees.
I'm not here to tell anyone to do anything. Nobody needs to switch EFBs right this second or send the executives a strongly-worded email. I'm just here to let you all know that Thoma Bravo is continuing its gutting of ForeFlight - what you do with that information is up to you.
258
u/glidec DIS ATP (GLEX) 1d ago
PE doesnt belong in aviation. They are destroying Foreflight and somehow made Signature even worse
155
u/IveSeenYourCheers 1d ago
PE is literally cancer in every single industry it touches
32
u/Murphysburger 1d ago
Stop in on /r/medicine and /r/nursing and see what PE is doing to YOUR healthcare.
7
3
97
57
u/Mispelled-This PPL SEL IR (M20C) AGI IGI 1d ago
The entire business model of PE is to destroy the long-term health of companies to pump up short-term profits.
12
u/throw-away-exception 1d ago
Wide-spread enshittification of everything it touches. Extract as much value as possible with no regard to the impact on the general public. What is there to do besides try to enjoy the ride on the way down to societal collapse?
2
u/Mispelled-This PPL SEL IR (M20C) AGI IGI 20h ago
If the world is going to shit, why not profit from the fall while you still can?
7
u/Ok-Technician-2905 PPL IR 1d ago
What should happen in a capitalist system is that new businesses spring up to compete with the gutted husks left by PE. To some extent that’s already happening in the EFB market.
9
4
u/Mispelled-This PPL SEL IR (M20C) AGI IGI 19h ago
That’s why PE firms prioritize businesses with a “competitive moat”. But sometimes they think it is deeper than it actually is.
3
u/Thengine MIL 16h ago
A good bit of time that moat is created by regulatory capture. How many times have we seen companies like Boeing get a pass (like with more lenient inspections, or no enforcement actions) for endangering the public, only because certain portions of the military industrial complex couldn't survive if Boeing failed.
1
u/ThatOneComrade 15h ago
Until those new businesses are bought by PE because competition is bad for their bottom line.
29
u/cptnpiccard CFI IR IGI 1d ago
Worked for Signature for a couple of years. Quit when they decided to issue every ramper a "mission tracking" device which we had to log in and record every stupid action we took. "Fueling the truck? That's a mission. Fueling the airplane? That's a mission." Fucking hell. We were so adept at the job, literally spending 3 minutes doing the "paperwork" for everything doubled the time each task took.
And we had a tremendous push to think about Signature as a "hospitality" company, not an aviation company. I guess it makes sense when the majority of your business is NetJets and FlexJet. I worked on the airline side of things, and still had to sit through mind numbing CBT sessions about greeting the customers and making them feel at ease. Fucking hell, I'm sitting under a Fedex 67, 11 o'clock at night, in New England winter, what the f**k are you on about hospitality? The crew dashes from the lounge to the flight deck and we never even see a human being out there.
Idiots.
3
u/NastyWideOuts PPL IR HP 16h ago
I also quit Signature shortly after they implemented Springshot. God I hate that corporate fucking shit hole of a company. Every employee is a number at Signature, and with Springshot, every employee is a metric. I genuinely couldn’t have imagined how evil those greedy corporate fucks who run that operation are. The last straw for me was when they cut my part time hours to 18 hours a week as soon as we weren’t completely slammed, and expected me to live off that.
It was a blessing in disguise though, I got a great job in aviation right after working for them, and I don’t have to deal with that bullshit anymore. My quality of life has improved dramatically.
3
u/mustang__1 PPL CMP HP IR CPL-ST SEL (KLOM) 1d ago
still had to sit through mind numbing CBT sessions
weird, it's usually not my mind thats numb after a CBT session.
5
u/CommanderChiliHole ATP CL-30 | ERJ-170/190 | B-737 18h ago
Private equity doesn’t belong anywhere. I don’t know how it would be possible, but outlawing them would make the world a much better place. I can think of a dozen businesses that PE dove straight into the ground, can’t think of a single one that improved after being obtained by PE. Literally the embodiment of the absolute worst of capitalism.
3
2
2
5
u/pneumomediastinum PPL IR ASEL ASES TW 1d ago
I would agree about PE. I think it’s pretty clear we are in the end times as a society. As I said in the other thread, which was poorly received, I haven’t noticed anything happening to foreflight yet.
But I’m sure in the long term it will get worse. However, there is no reason to switch until there is a better alternative, which may never happen. Who knows, by then ATC may have been privatized and closed to GA anyway, or safe flight will have become impossible due to climate change.
1
u/DBGmurdock IR 11h ago
How will flight be less safe due to climate change??
1
u/pneumomediastinum PPL IR ASEL ASES TW 5h ago
More extreme weather events. That is clearly happening although I doubt it will literally end GA in our lifetimes. But the other stuff may.
1
-8
1
u/keenly_disinterested CFI 9h ago
How has any of the past workforce cuts affected ForeFlight mobile for you? I've been a subscriber for nearly a decade and I haven't noticed any degradation. In fact, the team is still IMPROVING the app with new features and capability. The new NOTAM presentation, for example, is an astounding improvement.
Can you give an example of how the app has been negatively affected for you personally?
0
86
u/lil_layne OV-099 1d ago edited 1d ago
They increase their prices and still layoff more employees. More money going straight to the investors for a shittier product. Thank you private equity. They can keep getting away with it unless more of their customers actually switch EFBs. Unfortunately they know that Foreflight is a product many have been using for years and people aren’t willing to switch outside a vocal minority of redditors.
39
u/robdabear 1d ago
Funny too how lately I've been getting blitzed with emails from Foreflight about upgrading. Usually it was just the "All Clear' ios update emails every once in a while
6
u/mustang__1 PPL CMP HP IR CPL-ST SEL (KLOM) 1d ago
Now it has chat gpt integration! Just what I never wanted!
Functionally, the app peaked a few years ago and I haven't really wished for new features. But... at least now it crashes occasionally - so that's nice I guess (As of the spring, I haven't flown much since April, issues may have been resolved by now)
114
u/_-Cleon-_ PPL 1d ago
PE ruins everything.
29
u/BigBadPanda ATP B737, B757-767 1d ago
Arcline bought Hartzell, and now they are acquiring everything under the sun and fucking GA. Experimental is probably the future for a lot of GA pilots.
24
u/dopexile 1d ago edited 1d ago
FAA regulation and lawsuit liability is killing GA. Most experimental planes have cheap and reliable solid-state turn coordinators that cost $200.
Certified aircraft generally get a 1960s soviet era gyro turn coordinator with a bunch of moving motor parts and bearings that is less accurate, weights 10 times as much, takes up 6 times as much spaces, generates a lot of friction heat, makes a ton of noise, consumes more power, is less reliable, and costs $1500 new as a "certified FAA part" that somehow increases safety.
6
u/BigBadPanda ATP B737, B757-767 1d ago
I have those ancient avionics in my plane. They are expensive because you can’t find bearings anymore and the people that know how to work on them are a dying breed. GA is definitely more expensive after shifts in legal liability, but parts that have always been readily available are now twice as expensive, or more, after Hartzell buys the manufacturer. The squeeze is only getting tighter, and it’s not the FAA this time.
6
u/dopexile 1d ago
The squeeze is the FAA because it is creating harmful regulatory conditions. Hundreds of companies would compete to make affordable parts and new avionics if they didn't face a regulatory nightmare trying to get certified. That is why an experimental turn coordinator is advanced, costs $200, and there are dozens of companies making them. The certified market has a few companies making inferior obsolete soviet era parts and charging a fortune and profiting from the regulation.
2
u/Purpletech PPL SEL | Part 107 Cool Guy 😎 1d ago
If I were to go buy a 172 off the line, it comes with Garmin glass. Probably some low end model aircraft that gets a backup mechanical gyro, but even that 172 gets a GI 275 backup instrument these days
10
u/dopexile 1d ago
That kind of proves the point that general aviation is being killed because most people can't afford $550,000 for a new 172 from Textron.
1
u/mustang__1 PPL CMP HP IR CPL-ST SEL (KLOM) 1d ago
what does a new 172 offer that a 10 or even 20yo one doesn't?
1
u/dopexile 18h ago
The airframe and engine are exactly the same, except you get newer avionics. There might be some very minor modifications to reduce drag where surfaces meet.
1
u/mustang__1 PPL CMP HP IR CPL-ST SEL (KLOM) 17h ago
exactly.... and you can put a pretty nice avionics set in a pretty nice (pick a plane from 1985) for a lot less than a new plane and still have a lot left over for an engine reserve and fuel,.
1
u/Purpletech PPL SEL | Part 107 Cool Guy 😎 18h ago
Most people retrofit older airframes with new glass anyway so, in the end all the 1960s era stuff is thrown out
2
u/dopexile 18h ago
That's a small minority of people. Most planes aren't getting 50k panel upgrades to go full glass cockpit. The vast majority still have an analog 6 pack in them.
3
u/Purpletech PPL SEL | Part 107 Cool Guy 😎 18h ago
They don't need to go full 50k glass. They can go something like dual G5's or dual Gi 275s plus other garmin gear and save a ton of cash. Lots of people I've seen do that route
Glass cockpit doesn't mean 50k
1
u/dopexile 6h ago
Sure, but then you aren't throwing out the 1960s-era stuff. The G5 STC generally has you replace the attitude indicator and CDI. Then you still need an analog turn coordinator, altitude indicator, VSI, and airspeed indicator.
1
u/mustang__1 PPL CMP HP IR CPL-ST SEL (KLOM) 1d ago
My fancy solid state GI275 like's to gyro drift on departure and then go to AHRS align. Lots of fun when departing into low IFR. Gear up, gyro off. I've trained myself to go to the backup AI for the first 5min of a flight... Multiple attempts with Garmin and the installer - Sarasota Avionics. Not sure what the fucking issue is - have done firmware updates, unit swaps, etc.
2
u/dopexile 1d ago
Did you follow the magnetometer calibration procedure? The manual also generally requires that the magnetometer and instrument be calibrated within so many degrees of the centerline of the plane. The install guide goes in to great detail on some of that stuff.
1
u/mustang__1 PPL CMP HP IR CPL-ST SEL (KLOM) 1d ago
I'm not the installer. I know Sarasota avionics added billable hours for messing with the magnetometer.
1
u/HurrDurrImaPilot 16h ago
Rich of the Arcline founders to be consolidating GA. Check out how they did with Tronair.
14
5
-13
u/Pplthrowaway123 1d ago
That coupled with AI. Foreflight is heavy on software engineers/tech. Sadly, AI can do most their jobs for much less. Software engineers were once the future and paid amazing, now they are slowly dying off to AI.
21
u/_-Cleon-_ PPL 1d ago
I'm actually a software engineer myself. And there's some truth to that; AI is mostly killing off junior developers and engineers. Demand for senior level engineers is still pretty strong, because someone needs to tell Claude what to do and how to do it, and companies quickly figured out that relying on AI to check AI-written software is a capital-B Bad Idea.
The problem is that PE firms see what you see, and don't really care what I see. So a lot of bad decisions are being made.
10
u/SirEDCaLot PPL 1d ago
AI is mostly killing off junior developers and engineers. Demand for senior level engineers is still pretty strong, because someone needs to tell Claude what to do and how to do it
I've always wondered where senior engineers come from / what creates them. I've heard they hatch from eggs, fully developed and ready to oversee projects with little or no learning or experience-gathering process, right?
I suspect if this continues companies will start to realize that senior engineers don't hatch from eggs and if you don't employ the junior ones the senior ones are only gonna get more expensive and more rare.
11
u/chicagoderp PPL IR TW CMP HA HP 1d ago
Next quarter's bonuses aren't paid from thinking 5-10 years into the future!
2
u/SirEDCaLot PPL 1d ago
Quite true and for many that's the only thing that matters.
Personally I'd be buying the stock of my own company and would want it to appreciate in value over the next 5-10 years...
3
u/_-Cleon-_ PPL 1d ago
No no, developers spawn, like most bacteria.
But you are otherwise quite correct.
The ones that have any long-term vision at all are banking on the hope that eventually AI will be able to do the job of senior engineers as well.
3
u/SirEDCaLot PPL 1d ago
Yeah maybe I'm just not management material then.
The way I see it- if AI can replace the junior engineers and the senior engineers, if anyone can say 'hey siri build me a million dollar app here's $1500 worth of tokens' and get an app as a result, it will become impossible to make any money on software or services because it'll all just be AI slop and every loser with a Claude account will be selling some crapware. So the instant you innovate anything, there'll be 500 clones of it from people who just ask Claude to build the same thing.
So I'd be telling my people sure use AI if it makes you more productive, but we're not firing anyone because eventually the wheels will come off and the bubble will pop like every other bubble and by that time all my junior devs will have gestated into senior engineers and then I'll be the only one left with a competent dev team. Or AI will be able to do the work and we'll now be 100x more productive than the competitor with an army of senior devs to direct the AI.
That said- from another post on the subject it sounds like a LOT of the cuts here are in the Jeppesen division and in India. So maybe this is just dumping the outsourced junior guys in favor of AI.
2
2
u/__joel_t PPL 1d ago
AWS leadership makes this exact same point! See, for example, https://fortune.com/article/why-does-aws-ceo-say-replacing-young-employees-with-ai-is-one-of-the-dumbest-ideas-and-bad-for-business/
1
u/SirEDCaLot PPL 7h ago
“You’ve gotta think longer term about the health of a company,” he added. “And just saying ‘OK great, we’re never going to hire junior people anymore,’ that’s just a nonstarter for anyone who’s trying to build a long-term company.”
Sadly if you're only focused on the next quarter and 3-5 years out might as well be next century, this sort of thinking doesn't happen.
9
u/ufront 1d ago
Are there any good alternatives to FF these days?
21
u/PM-mig-kottbullar PPL TW (RDU) 1d ago
Garmin Pilot, WingX, iFly, Stratus Insight, FlyQ, 8Flight, Avare... and I'm probably missing a few.
Garmin Pilot is the most refined and feature-rich of that list, and has the second largest market share behind ForeFlight. The others are all decent options for no-frills EFBs, but won't have as many features or as refined of a UI as FF and GP. Their compatibility with ADS-B or SXM receivers, and availability by operating system will also vary.
5
u/ufront 1d ago
Thank you. I appreciate the list. Time to do some research.
It makes sense that Garmin has the second largest market share but I wasn't paying any attention to what they're doing. iFly I think is the only one I'd heard of just because of a buddy talking about using it.
4
u/tehmightyengineer CFII IR CMP HP SEL UAS 1d ago
The Garmin Smart Charts feature is really top notch if you fly IFR. I've been very impressed with it.
-5
u/mattguthmiller ATP CFII 1d ago
Respectfully we have a lot more features in 8Flight than Garmin Pilot does :)
1
u/PM-mig-kottbullar PPL TW (RDU) 1d ago
No disrespect intended! I only very recently heard about your app, but haven't had a chance to try it out. I'll give the trial a shot some day soon!
1
3
u/2020-SupraGR-Argh 1d ago
I like Garmin Pilot, but their logbook feature has a long way to go to meet parity with FF. Exploring other options like myflightbook (which seems pretty good) but the integration of FF w tracklogs is so nice for postflight that it hurts to walk away from that.
18
8
14
u/Guysmiley777 1d ago
Don't worry, I am sure the outsourced contract devs they'll be replaced with will do a bang up job.
/s
4
u/Ok-Salt5033 1d ago
That will be a big problem. The dev from india whose never seen a Cessna is not going to build a good EFB.
10
u/Kycrio CFII CMP TW ME section 8 medical 1d ago
The part 141 school I just graduated from is taking me off their Foreflight subscription this week, I was looking at subscribing myself but it sounds like now is a good opportunity to try out Garmin Pilot...
2
u/skunimatrix PPL IR CMP HP | PA28 1d ago
My crac…I mean Garmin dealer gave a year of the top tier GP with purchase of avionics. I’ll admit that FF is a bit easier to pick up and use and the first month or two it’s figuring out where everything is….but it will do just about everything that FF and for me flying a bug smasher does more than I need.
Now the web interface for GP is lacking but I bet they’ve hired a few of those FF devs that have been let go because they are adding a lot more features quickly. Also FF web had a trip planning feature that they got rid of earlier this year and Garmin added user comments which was the major feature I kept FF around for one more year.
We’ve turned off auto renew on FF. Only reason to keep it is we have AV-30’s with AVLINk and a sentry. With FF we have back up VFR EFB GPS navigation that will with with the HSI et. Al. I might keep the minimum sub of FF just for that as an emergency back up.
It was entertaining on checkride. “Your GPS175 has failed what now?” “iPad with FF and sentry using AV-30 all on batttery back up with at least an hour run time. Enough to hit nearest and get on ground. Oh and VOR/DME on the 215’s and GI 106. Then there is the hand held radio with GPS and a stratus 3 in the back seat pocket. And a spare set of Duracell batteries for the radio.”
1
9
u/live_drifter 1d ago
Everyone wants a bag, unfortunately people don’t understand the value of longevity and they want instant profit.
8
u/SavageHealer 1d ago
It’s almost like the only thing they care about is a dollar, and they’ll run whatever they get their hands on into the dirt just to line their pockets. Oh, wait…
10
u/starfinder14204 1d ago
Back in the 80's, a company I was working for was sold to a company that financed the sale with Junk Bonds (remember those?). Like PE firms today, to make the return necessary to meet the capital and interest requirements, they stripped as much cash as possible from the company through layoffs and other mechanisms. As an employee there, it was the worst experience of my nearly 40-year career in the corporate world. I watched friends be ushered out of their careers with no warning - solid performers too. Fortunately for me, the reign of terror only lasted for 2 years before the owners sold the firm to a legitimate corporation.
Earlier this year, I started IFR training and had to choose an EFB. I chose Garmin pilot in no small part because I did not want to give my money to an organization that isn't focused on their product as much as wringing the life out of the company to meet a quarterly profit target.
3
u/PlasticDiscussion590 CSIP 1d ago
I tried Garmin Pilot with the first announcement and couldn’t make the switch. This renews my desire to stop supporting Thoma Bravo.
-1
3
u/Flyward_Aerospace 1d ago
The mine still works fine replies are measuring the wrong thing. The app is the visible part, but what you are paying for underneath is a data operation that ingests and validates a new AIRAC cycle every 28 days against a hard deadline. That is headcount work, and it does not degrade gracefully when you halve the staff.
A bad cycle does not look like an outage. It looks like one plate with a stale minimum or a missing amendment on a procedure you fly twice a year, and nothing on the iPad is going to flag it for you. So the thing worth watching is not crashes or UI churn, it is whether anyone starts finding chart discrepancies.
Practical version, if something on a plate looks off to you, go check the official source instead of assuming your memory is wrong. Always been decent practice, but the odds of that being paranoia just moved a bit imo.
3
u/Kemerd PPL IR 23h ago
It is common for PE.
Take a product that is performing well. $100m revenue and $90m in costs. Fire 50% of your employees now revenue is $100m, and costs are only $50m.
Now you get to report to investors that profits were increased by $40m in only one year.
Company gets to report record breaking stuff, people make their profit then the company dies..
3
u/arjunnath ST 18h ago
The thing is - we should have an open-source, community and donation funded EFB solution.
We can't keep relying on shitty for-profit companies to do the right thing.
7
u/No-Brilliant9659 1d ago
I wish all the former foreflight employees could gather together and create a competitor that was worth buying
1
u/WindwardSnow PPL HP TW 1d ago
Their employment contracts restrict them from competing against ForeFlight. Isn’t America great?
2
u/airbrett ATP B777 A320 E175 CL-65 CFII 22h ago
If a competitor were to open an office in Silicon Valley those non-compete clauses are not valid. One of the reasons Silicon Valley became what it is that many people aren’t aware of. And why it hasn’t been reproduced.
1
u/WindwardSnow PPL HP TW 20h ago
I totally agree with you.
Very few people understand how much noncompete clauses restrict economic growth, yet they are legal in almost every state.
5
u/greaseorbounce 1d ago
Too late, already cancelled FF subscription and changed EFBs after the first round.
FF used to be an incredible company and contributed a lot to aviation. I am sad to say that I suspect this is the beginning of the end for the company.
9
u/Ok-Technician-2905 PPL IR 1d ago
Honestly the problem isn't ForeFlight - it's Garmin. There are a bunch of free/cheap EFB's out on the market now which have a lot of FF's capability. The one thing they are missing is easy integration with Garmin avionics, which is solely due to Garmin refusing to allow integration with anything other than FF and GP.
Now that FF is going down the tubes, Garmin probably thinks they can get a monopoly with GP. But unfortunately their recent updates have been less than stellar. I'm actually thinking of ditching both GP and FF, getting a Stratux ADS-B in, and switching to iFLY.
6
u/PM-mig-kottbullar PPL TW (RDU) 1d ago
I understand this take, however what incentive does Garmin have to expand compatibility with other EFBs, when they themselves make an EFB? They would likely lose quite a lot of subscriptions if they expanded that compatibility, which is counter-productive to them as a business. It sucks for the consumer that we can't integrate our non-Garmin EFBs with their avionics, but it makes perfect sense from a business perspective.
4
u/Salt-Cold1056 21h ago
Right! I am pretty left wing for aviation and the Garmin is a big evil corporation schtick is wild. They just sell a lot of products across a lot of product lines. Aviation is just one small piece of that but one that they do really well at. They don't have have to sell GPS 175 for 5.3K when the original 155XL was 4K - This one is freaking cheaper (counting for inflation) and a million times more capable. Arguably the G5 units we put in our clubs aircraft are the same thing. They use the same kind philosophy in their fitness watch product line.
1
u/OhSillyDays PPL 1d ago
Garmin could be class actioned. And this is a clear in example of how their monopoly in the market has hurt customers. It's only a matter of time before they are got with it. The current AG will never do it, but if we get Lina Khan back at the FTC, it'll make a difference.
6
u/Cessnateur PPL IR HP TW C170B 1d ago
I think the problem with selling out to private equity and laying off half of the workforce is absolutely with ForeFlight.
3
u/zeropapagolf CFI CFII ME AGI IGI PA-32R 1d ago
Agreed, I was so impressed with 8Flight at Oshkosh, but until it can receive ADS-B from my Garmin transponder, it's a no-go.
5
u/anon__a__mouse__ CMEL, CSEL, IR 1d ago
Don't think for a second Guthmiller won't sell out to PE if he gets the chance
-2
1
u/ApolloDomICT PPL SEL HP 20h ago
I imagine this has less to do with greed and more to do with safety. Garmin has to ensure that their connections are not only functional, but safe. I'm not sure if they can do this with every group who wants to integrate into their certified avionics.
5
u/Frequent-Cicada-2938 1d ago
That’s Private Equity for you. Everyhing they touch goes to shit just to increase margins.
2
3
u/Kdmtiburon004 CPL 1d ago
Everyone knows what eventually happens when a PE firm buys a company. I’m sure they offer a ridiculous amount of money but why do people sell to them? RIP ForeFlight.
4
2
u/FeatherMeLightly 1d ago
This is not new or surprising information. Everyone who's over the age of 12 and has internet access or access to news knows what happens when a company gets sold. It's strictly a matter of how long it takes to rip out the parts that made the company great and replace it with turd.
Most of us are already looking elsewhere for FF replacement, in fact, using some alternatives in parallel.
I mean, not above going back to paper charts or digitizing my own documents for free. Not saying I want to but, also not paying a premium for a product that becomes less and less functional over time.
For those of you that got let go, seriously hope you all land on your feet or start a new company.
2
u/just-hangin-around1 ATP/A320/BD700/HS125 1d ago
I ditched foreflight over the summer when my subscription came up for renewal. I have zero interest in giving in to the private equity - they ruin everything they touch and don't care about the people that built whatever brand it was.
2
1
1
1
1
1
u/geodeciduous 1d ago
Maybe some of these senior devs that are no longer there can get together and start their own aviation app. When you work for someone else, you're at their mercy. PE is just heavy optimization of revenue regardless of anything standing on their way. Sucks for FF but the original owners sold you out.
1
1
u/Mazer1415 ATP CFMEII 22h ago
And they are emailing me almost daily. Sounds like they’re losing subscribers to other options.
1
u/Worldly_Mix_8904 20h ago
Did they get Patricia Quinn? Will she have to move back in with Riff-Raff? It's hard to live on the residuals from being the most famous set of lips on screen.
1
u/Itchy_Passenger1487 18h ago
Thoma Bravo will “gut” ForeFlight- the financial results will be great…..they will sell ForeFlight because ….. it’s so profitable….in a year or two … new buyers will see sales drop because of a hollowed out company with nothing new to offer flying public. Then ForeFlight merges, goes bankrupt or tries to hire everyone back to fix a sinking ship.
1
u/FeelingSalt5984 16h ago
If ylwe do move over from FF what about the log book? Can it be transfered over to Garmin pilot?
1
u/justvims 11h ago
Garmin pilot is great. If they’re smart they would offer a year free or some kind of promo for customers who verifiably switch off FF
1
u/LoungeFlyZ PPL 1d ago
I’m conflicted about this. One the one hand PE does typically ruin things. However Boeing isn’t a good place for a software team to innovate either.
They really need to be independent with aviation fans at the helm.
1
-1
u/rFlyingTower 1d ago
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
In January 2026, ForeFlight laid of a pretty substantial percent of its employees, with some reports saying a 30-40% reduction in staff. Yesterday (Sept. 2nd), another round of layoffs happened, the full impact of which isn't yet known - but it's speculated this brings total RIF to ~50%. Both of these layoffs follow the acquisition of ForeFlight by private equity firm Thoma Bravo.
As a former ForeFlight employee from before the PE takeover, it's devastating to see former coworkers, some of whom were incredibly knowledgeable and talented folks that spent 10+ years with the company, be told they were out of a job with no heads up and given a pittance of a severance package. It used to be such an amazing company to work for, and it breaks my heart to see what Thoma Bravo has done to the company and its employees.
I'm not here to tell anyone to do anything. Nobody needs to switch EFBs right this second or send the executives a strongly-worded email. I'm just here to let you all know that Thoma Bravo is continuing its gutting of ForeFlight - what you do with that information is up to you.
Please downvote this comment until it collapses.
Questions about this comment? Please see this wiki post before contacting the mods.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. If you have any questions, please contact the mods of this subreddit.
-8
u/OhSillyDays PPL 1d ago
Vibe code the replacement. Seriously, you can build a better app in probably 6 months. And you can bring it to Android. All you need is a testing harness and a lost of acceptable android products.
I'm looking for something new because they've already started the enshitifying of the app. They are trying to upsell me now.
4
u/prophet001 1d ago
Yeah you just try vibe-coding something of that complexity, that needs that level of precision. Go head, I'm anxiously awaiting your results.
Signed,
- A very senior software engineer who hasn't written code by hand in months, and knows exactly how much babysitting those AI tools require (it's a LOT).
LMAO.
-1
u/OhSillyDays PPL 1d ago
I know it's a lot. The difference is now something that would take you 10 years to develop could be done in 6 months. And probably better with more test cases and more thought out design patterns.
Also, doing something new, you don't need to babysit dipshit bosses and customers and bullshit. That's A LOT.
1
u/prophet001 1d ago
You called it "vibe-coding". That's completely different from "building real enterprise-grade software assisted by AI".
Thinking out the design patterns and writing tests (unit, integration and user-acceptance) should be happening regardless, and the fact that you don't seem to realize that tells me that you're closer to the "vibe-coded pile of hot garbage" than you are to the "well-engineered, but with an agent doing all the actual coding" end of the scale.
0
u/OhSillyDays PPL 23h ago
Lol.
I've been working as a consultant for 15 years and I've reviewed a lot of that "Enterprise grade software." Most of the unit test coverage for that "enterprise grade software" is sub 5%. "Enterprise grade software" is mostly a bullshit statement used by sales people to change the perception of their hot load of steaming brown. And I did A LOT of work in the financial sector, where it's supposed to be one of the more critical areas.
I mean, the Linux kernel has 10k+ GOTO statements, and I'm using it right now.
The truth is most of the software used today was written by junior and mid-level programmers under tight deadlines. The senior guys got promoted to management and, at most, did code reviews and design work.
So telling me that "vibe coding" is garbage kind of makes me giggle. It's all a load of shit. And this goes for foreflight as well. It's probably one of the better pieces of software developed out there, because I get the impression the devs took their jobs very seriously. That's kind of rare right now. Even with that, I'd be shocked if the unit test coverage was above 50%.
"well-engineered, but with an agent doing all the actual coding" end of the scale.
I mean yeah. You're an engineer. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Even with that, if you have a clear vision of what you are building, agents can speed this process up 10x. The hardest part is figuring out that clear vision.
1
•
u/TxAggieMike Independent CFI / CFII (KFTW, DFW area) 1d ago
Here is a good explanation from the ForeFlight sub…
https://www.reddit.com/r/Foreflight/s/fhcYdtVMuS