Welcome to Air France the high cost, low service airline.
But this is not even just the death of AF as a full service airline that we are witnessing, it is also even more of a vulgar lie than expected. Not only is Air France now starting their new 'low cost airline' model and not offering checked luggage, miles, possibility to choose your seats or possibility to change your tickets unless you pay extra to get this, but there is absolutely no reduction in price as a result. All the flights that are now charged €49 single + booking fee were regularly priced €48 single + booking fee during regular long terms promotions (i.e. bookable for periods of several months last year for travel for travel 365 days a year) for a full service product. I should know because I booked quite a few of them.
In fact, many of the prices in 'mini' are effectively significantly more expensive than prices in what would have been 'classic' just a few days ago: for example, the price of a NCE-TLV has jumped from €107 single for an Air France (rest in peace) experience to €139 and return in mini from €217 to €317 for a no change, no miles, no luggage, no selected seat experience, so an increase of nearly +50% to lose all the services of a full service airline except for a drink, snack, and newspaper.
So is AF competitive with this new lowest-quality-possible service? You decide. An Easyjet NCE-CDG or NCE-VCE start at €28 one way, while an NCE-CDG or NCE-VCE flight on AF will start at €49 one way. The advantages of AF are that for that price you get a soft drink (or wine or beer on the VCE flight), a biscuit, and a newspaper. The advantages of Easyjet is that your flight is changeable, you can even take any earlier flight on that day for free on a standby basis, you fly with a far less uncomfortable seat, and as everyone treated the same you are less likely to be treated like a third class citizen.
If I were to give AF a mark from 0-10 on its new "Mini" offer, I would give it a 1 just for introducing one way pricing, which an increasing number of other airlines have managed to introduce without increasing prices or transforming into low cost airlines (BA or LX to/from GVA being prime examples: low fares, fuller bar, better snacks, free luggage, fares one way and changeable, and FF miles on every fare). Today AF has managed to simultaneously:
- exited the full service airline category and should be regarded as a low cost airline whiich will only give you full service on short and medium haul if you pay extra for it. She has placed herself on a lower category than the BA and LX's of this world;
- priced herself out of the low cost competition which she has just decided to enter: for a low cost product, AF is absolutely not competitive against the U2, AB, or DY of this world, which all offer a better and more flexible product at a significantly lower cost (unless you are lucky enough to get a specific day/flight where AF randomly happens to be cheaper);
- continued to lie to passengers and play them for xxx by claiming to lower her prices while she has in fact simultaneously increased fares and drastically lowered service standards on multiple destinations.
- make the experience worse for all customers, both 'mini' who are losing out and 'classic' who will implicitly be losing out because people will carry even more hand luggage on already over-burdened domestic flights since they won't want to pay the luggage fee, will try to change seats because they won't like the ones they couldn't choose etc.
My perception is that transporting luggage is a cost for an airline and I would have accepted that AF started charging for that if (1) they at least symbolically lowered the fare without luggage, (2) did not start lowering the product by withdrawing things (such as seat choice and miles earning) which distinguish the AF brand from a low cost brand and cost them nothing (or virtually nothing considering the minimal miles earnings). Instead, AF have deliberately made their product worse just for the sake of adding a fully artificial form of differenciation between their new offer and their old offer rebranded new and better while being the exact same. This, to me, is disastrous brand management.
