Jeppesen ForeFlight layoffs: the company will not say how many jobs went in January, but its CEO's email says automation and AI are changing how its software is built

Jeppesen ForeFlight, the flight-planning and navigation software business that Thoma Bravo bought from Boeing in 2025, laid off what The Air Current called a sizable portion of its workforce on 14 January 2026. In a company-wide email reviewed by The Air Current, chief executive Brad Surak wrote that automation and AI are changing how aviation software is built and scaled and that we must continue to modernize how we work so we can deliver at the level our customers expect. The company confirmed the cuts to Flying magazine two days later, describing changes to streamline our operating model in support of product innovation and customer experience, but called the 30% to 50% figures circulating on social media misleading and overstated and declined to give a number. Former employees have claimed engineering work is moving offshore; that has not been confirmed. Thoma Bravo, which said at the time of the acquisition that the deal would unlock investment in artificial intelligence, declined to comment. The company has since put AI at the centre of its product line: on 6 October 2026 it launched the first of what it says will be hundreds of agents on its Airflow platform for commercial aviation. The cut is recorded here at the chief executive's own words; the size remains undisclosed.