PeteM01

Now booked. I am looking forward to trying the new W seat - hopefully less of a pain in the backside than the old design.

NickB

If they want a feeder flight from IST that arrives at 7.00am and they want a single crew to operate it, there is no alternative: having the CDG-IST leaving earlier to arrive at a more reasonable hour and leaving the plane sitting at IST until the next morning would mean having to use several crews to operate the flight with a stopover for them in IST. The late departure from CDG is the only way to have an IST service for which you only need one crew and arrives early enough from IST to allow for connections to tatl.

Goldorak

There are also some connections possible in CDG (from domestic and medium-haul), but knowing that IST is well served by TK and LCCs from many cities (including secondary cities in France), I don't know who will want to arrive in IST in the middle of the night.

Correct indeed.

hfly

They had a flight that caught the morning TATL's it always left around 6AM. They also had up to 3 other flights a day, and KLM had up to 3, not to mention weird experiments with Marseille, Toulouse and the like. The Skyteam drawdown in IST started before the last two years of terrorist attacks, coups, etc. It started about 4 years ago when TK went super aggressive after ST hubs, CDG, AMS, JFK and even ATL (and the constituent beyond North and South American destinations). In the old days AF probably saw 100 or so pax a week to Brazil and Argentina from IST, now they are lucky to see 10. It should also be added that due to AFKL's own strange structure and decision making IST did not even have a country manager for close to 3 years (and bizarrely only brought one in about 4 months before the Joon announcement).

NickB

The drop in European tourism to Turkey is not just in the last couple of years. it started to drop about four years ago, which corresponds roughly to notable increases in foreign fighters in Syria and increased police controls on flights to Istanbul.

hfly

It was gangbusters until June 2013. Even then there was no real continuous drop until mid-2015. The Skyteam drawdown essentially started in summer 2012 when DL decided to go seasonal, and AFKL decided to do some not so smart things, otherwise they could have kept it up, even in the face of TK competition.

No one decided not to go to Istanbul because of some extra police questions at the airport, also having lived in Turkey for decades, I can tell you that relative drops in tourist numbers have not meant flag carriers dropping off the route before, even when there has been worse turmoil in Turkey.

brunos

We discussed a lot about IST in another thread.
One cannot escape the fact that IST is the hub for a significant airline linking Europe and Asia.
The have daily six flights to CDG, including 3 loghaul ac with far superior J product. They have plenty of seats to sell for PtP traffic besides their longhaul traffic.
With the reduction in tourism (or even without), it is hard to see how AF can compete.
And there are charter flights direct to the beach destinations.

mtdd

We flew CDG - CAI with Joon yesterday in business class. Flight left 10 mins late, arrived on time.

I have a soft spot for the A340, and while I think that the 787 is the best plane in the world currently, I personally prefer the 2-2-2 layout of the A340. The plane was spotless, looked new; I was not overwhelmed by the blue mood lighting and decor, but that is a small quibble.The FAs are indeed young and energetic, for my doddery old tastes perhaps a little eager to please, and seemingly nervous as they went about their tasks. But that again is a small quibble.

Less amusingly, I found it bizarre that dinner was served well into the second half of the flight, and turned into a little bit of a rush in the galley as we approached Cairo: this rush was compounded by passengers going off for their post-prandial appointments with the lavatories, which meant they were hanging around in the galley getting under the feet of the young trendies (and no, their millenial uniforms did not do a lot for me) as they desperately tried to get all the detritus from dinner squared away. There was a perfectly good and unused loo at the front of the plane that was blocked off for crew use only.

Which brings me to my only genuinely serious issue: the catering. While the wine list is AF and excellent, the main meal was severely unappetising. I had a loin of pork that was cooked to death and served with carrot purée, and whose visual appearance was frankly somewhat nauseous.

I do have to stress that the FAs worked very hard to make a success of this (I believe) inaugural flight to Cairo, and I very much hope that our next trip with Joon in May will have a more settled ambience.

But on balance, I really don't see the point of Joon. It might fine for young kids jetting off to Martinique for the sun and surf, but the bulk of pax on the Cairo run are Old Farts like me, and like me they were all wearing a somewhat bemused expression on their faces. On balance I preferred the more placid, and dare I say it, more stylish performance put on by Air France's "oldies"?

Goldorak

brunos

Indeed.
The pilots won again as JOON has to be flown by AF pilots under AF conditions.
But my guess is that all new hiring of AF/JN staff will be at JN under more favorable JN conditions.

hfly

Are you saying that Joon to Cairo served, "Loin of Pork"? That is hugely surprising as on flights like that AF generally does not serve pork products and even has been known to put out small tent cards in Business Class with a stamped over piggy to make the point!

olivedel

That is still to be confirmed. The highest labor cost in a plane is in the front, not at the back. And still no action around that, because of the fear of strikes.

mtdd

Yup. It was described as loin of pork: whether it tasted as such is debatable

brunos

If they were indeed serving pork to CAI, it would be a ridiculous JOON mistake.
They might have a single menu (pork is cheap) for all their longhaul flight, but that is silly for a muslim destination.

fransknorge

When BA introduced Buy on Board, the only substantial item on the menu was a bacon roll. For all destinations so this included IST, RAK and ALG.