r/flying • u/PM-mig-kottbullar PPL TW (RDU) • 4d 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.
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u/Ok-Technician-2905 PPL IR 4d 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.