BOYCOTT iFLY
Why?
iFly has been taking advantage of customers and employees for too long. As sport flyers the company is largely hated and occasionally tolerated but iFly has represented a necessary evil given their monopoly status on the tunnel market in the United States. While sport flyers have in the past been treated as a nuisance, iFly has recently gone to great lengths to further debase their best customers who often have lifetime customer values that are many orders of magnitude greater than any first time flyer.
Employees and coaches (effectively contractors who bring a constant stream of revenue) have been treated equally poorly, if not worse, than sport flyers.
Micro-management and a total lack of adherence to the core values that the company espouses trickles down from the top. The only thing that the company cares about is getting as much money from customers as possible. Not about making sure they have a great experience, not providing incredible value, just extracting money. This is reflected in incentive and performance structures that make it impossible for employees to holistically give a customer a great experience when they're only focusing on upsells.
Since the pandemic has begun the physical demands on employees have increased exponentially and health and safety has suffered as a result. This has fallen on deaf ears with management who have actively avoided making changes that would be safer for instructors and students, if it would cost money or slow down the flow of revenue.
In the latest iteration of screwing the customer, the mass email that was recently sent out, iFly attempts to spin price increases and restrictions on outside coaches as beneficial to the customer. They are not beneficial to sport flyers in any way, shape, or form. They're not beneficial to the non-iFly employee coaches who have had their legs cut out from underneath them, and they're not beneficial to the employees who are now tasked with coaching things they aren't qualified or competent to coach.
How do I participate?
First and foremost, don't fly. Don't give this company another dollar until things change.
Beyond that you can help by encouraging other sport flyers to give up flying for the time being, and you can let iFly corporate leadership know why you're not flying.
What needs to change?
Senior management has been a merry-go-round for years, so leadership changes alone are not enough but will be crucial to cleaning house. New senior leadership should be selected by a board of current flight instructors and respected customers from the deep and diverse community of sport flyers.
But leadership is not enough and these specific changes should be enacted. A specific plan will be outlined soon.
Who can I contact?
Good question. These people would love to hear from you. It's best just to Cc all of them so that the message is sure to get to the right person:
Matt Ryan (CEO) mryan@iflyworld.com
Simon Ward (CEO International) sward@iflyworld.com
Aly Noormohamed (CFO) anoormohamed@iflyworld.com
Frank Livaudais (CTO) flivaudais@iflyworld.com
Sean McCoy (SVP Operations) smccoy@iflyworld.com
Chris Barrett (President) cbarrett@iflyworld.com
Patrick Framel (VP Global Dev) pframel@iflyworld.com
Kim Couch (Senior Marketing) kcouch@iflyworld.com
Ronnie Steck (SVP Marketing) rsteck@iflyworld.com
Jessica Fultz (Interim Regional Director) jfultz@iflyworld.com
Dillon Stroup (Regional Director) dstroup@iflyworld.com
Daniel Addis (Senior Director - Sales) daddis@iflyworld.com
Kevin Fiur (President & CLO) kfiur@iflyworld.com
Chris Lee (VP Business Development) clee@iflyworld.com
Jacqueline Sewell (VP Sales) jsewell@iflyworld.com
Brianne Gungoll (Senior Counsel) bgungoll@iflyworld.com
Dave Kirchoff (Shitcanned Former CEO) dkirchoff@me.com
Matt Ryan (CEO) mryan@iflyworld.com
Simon Ward (CEO International) sward@iflyworld.com
Aly Noormohamed (CFO) anoormohamed@iflyworld.com
Sean McCoy (SVP Operations) smccoy@iflyworld.com
Chris Barrett (President) cbarrett@iflyworld.com
Patrick Framel (VP Global Dev) pframel@iflyworld.com
Kim Couch (Senior Marketing) kcouch@iflyworld.com
Ronnie Steck (SVP Marketing) rsteck@iflyworld.com
Jessica Fultz (Interim Regional Director) jfultz@iflyworld.com
Dillon Stroup (Regional Director) dstroup@iflyworld.com
Daniel Addis (Senior Director - Sales) daddis@iflyworld.com
Kevin Fiur (President & CLO) kfiur@iflyworld.com
Chris Lee (VP Business Development) clee@iflyworld.com
Jacqueline Sewell (VP Sales) jsewell@iflyworld.com
Brianne Gungoll (Senior Counsel) bgungoll@iflyworld.com
Max Solodky (Data Analytics) msolodky@iflyworld.com
Jen Roane (Director) jroane@iflyworld.com
Jaret Oldfather (Safety Director) joldfather@iflyworld.com
Rusty Lewis (Examiner) rlewis@iflyworld.com
Mickey Nuttall (Regional Training Manager) mnuttall@iflyworld.com
Travis Deming (Senior Commercial Manager) tdeming@iflyworld.com
Copy and paste all:mryan@iflyworld.com sward@iflyworld.com anoormohamed@iflyworld.com smccoy@iflyworld.com cbarrett@iflyworld.com pframel@iflyworld.com kcouch@iflyworld.com rsteck@iflyworld.com jfultz@iflyworld.com dstroup@iflyworld.com daddis@iflyworld.com kfiur@iflyworld.com clee@iflyworld.com bgungoll@iflyworld.com msolodky@iflyworld.com jroane@iflyworld.com joldfather@iflyworld.com rlewis@iflyworld.com mnuttall@iflyworld.com tdeming@iflyworld.com
What if I am employee?
You are in an understandably difficult position. This is your job and your livelihood so a boycott could potentially hurt you, and you can't be involved without risking your job. We hope that whatever short term pain a reduction in sport flyer traffic brings will be more than offset by the massive changes at the company we hope to bring about.
However, if you have something you want to share you can use https://www.guerrillamail.com/ to send an anonymous email to boycottifly@protonmail.com
Consider sending over anything you think may be damaging to the company, or useful to people organizing against the company. Internal documents, emails, email addresses, videos, anything that the company wouldn't want made public. Take care to protect yourself. All submissions will remain completely anonymous, but you should also cover your own tracks whenever and wherever possible.
If you want to go further, and take action as an employee, you can do what has been proven over centuries to be effective strategies for labor to improve their material conditions: slow down work, pretend you don't understand instructions, mis-understand instructions, feign ignorance, subtly sabotage, or anything else that causes a little bit of trouble without being illegal or explicitly putting you in the crosshairs of management.
What about non-corporate/franchise iFly tunnels?
These issues do not substantially apply to franchise iFly tunnels. Feel free to fly at them and support their independent ownership. While some revenue indeed flows up to corporate iFly, ultimately they are independent operators - and it shows.