Flight Planning Software
Flight planning software splits into three tiers. GA/EFB apps: ForeFlight — Boeing-owned from 2019 until Boeing sold it (with Jeppesen) to Thoma Bravo for $10.55B in a deal that closed November 2025; both now operate as standalone 'Jeppesen ForeFlight' — charges $130/$260/$390 per year for Starter/Essential/Premium; Garmin Pilot is $109.99 (Standard) or $209.98 (Premium) and runs on iOS and Android, unlike iPad-only ForeFlight; SkyDemon, UK-built and VFR-focused, is $139 first year/$115 renewal or $15/month, with three weight-and-balance models in its Aircraft Editor. Sim-segment: SimBrief, owned by Navigraph since 2023, is free and generates dispatcher-style packages (fuel, NOTAMs, ETOPS); its Dispatch tool integrated directly into MSFS in November 2024. Airline segment: Jeppesen FliteDeck Pro — no longer Boeing's, now under the same Thoma Bravo-owned Jeppesen ForeFlight umbrella since late 2025 — is the commercial EFB standard; Lufthansa Systems' Lido Flight 4D serves 125+ operators and 7,700+ aircraft (ANA, Ryanair, Austrian, Philippine Airlines), competing with Flightkeys 5D and Sabre Dispatch Monitor. Pricing: GA/EFB apps run $110-390/yr (ForeFlight $130/$260/$390 tiers, Garmin Pilot $109.99/$209.98, SkyDemon $139 first yr/$115 renewal or $15/mo); SimBrief is free; airline-grade Jeppesen FliteDeck Pro and Lido Flight 4D are enterprise-licensed, quote-only.
Pick ForeFlight if you're a US-based GA pilot who wants the deepest weather/W&B/filing integration and don't mind iPad-only ($260/yr Essential covers most). Pick Garmin Pilot instead if you fly Android or own Garmin avionics — panel sync is tighter. Skip both for SkyDemon if you're flying VFR in Europe; ForeFlight's IFR-heavy US charting is overkill there. For sim pilots, SimBrief is the default — free, and its dispatcher-style OFP is what virtual airlines expect. Honest gap: none of these scale to airline dispatch — that's Jeppesen FliteDeck Pro or Lido Flight 4D territory, and even ForeFlight's own forums admit its Performance/W&B module lags Garmin's on complex multi-engine profiles. Known weakness: No single product covers all three segments — GA/EFB apps can't run airline dispatch workloads, and airline-grade systems (Jeppesen, Lido) demand costly integration/training most GA pilots and virtual airlines never need, so operators end up running two or more tools.