Arran was a serial entrepreneur who was very clear that his exit strategy was to build up the margins and sell it off to the highest bidder at the right time. He achieved that and I congratulate him for achieving it. He had no intention of running an actual aviation news business ad infinitum.

I think a lot of Simple Flying's content is borderline garbage (and I'm happy to tell them that too), but I will give them props for going from zero to market leader in mass market aviation news in just a few years. Whether we like it or not, they get all the eyeballs from airline CEOs down to acne-stricken anoraks (there is some overlap in that group too!).

There are also a few excellent features on Simple Flying like James Pearson's route analysis, some of Jo Bailey's CEO interviews, etc.. that are worth the read if you can sort through the other stuff to find them.