hfly

BA and LH have the same arguments between the short and long haul. The only slight hope that I have is that they actually put a better product in the IST biz class, could I dream of better seats with more legroom, rather than what we have now? I assume the NEV 4 was referring to their long haul product?

Goldorak

Medium-haul : BCN, OPO, LIS, TXL and now FCO, IST, OSL, NAP
Long-haul : FOR, SEZ and now the transfer of CPT, THR, CAI


This is very very sad to see the AF mark vanishing and disappearing from capital/major cities. No more AF in Portugal, Norway, Turkey, Egypt, Iran...Almost no more AF in Spain...
THR and CAI are so praised by Millenials, sorry I forgot
Today, 1st day of flying for Joon, is a very sad day IMO

Technically, at least for now, Joon flights are marketed exclusively as AF flights (AF-coded), so for the Skyteam lounge access in IST, that doesn’t change anything.

brunos

TK has been emulating the ME3. It attracts European pax to Asia (and vv).
TK now has 5 daily flights from CDG. Two flights connecting to the Asian bank in/from IST are operated by A330 with flat beds in J and IFE.
Hard to compete for European airlines on a 3+hr flight.

hfly

I know, but my thought/worry is that if they really abandon IST, keep it at one Joon flight, then KE goes as its only a couple of times a week, and if they push Joon as LOW COST (oops, again I mean millenial) then they might drop the lounge. Hasn't AF learned its lessons from HOP and after watching DL try the same thing with SONG, let alone UA's TED?

AurelAF96

Totally why FCO and not CTA as is more a leisure destination than FCO
I'm okay with NAP, OPO, TXL, IST but FCO and LIS no it's big european cities, keep the mother not the baby airline
However in a certain way AF is against Easyjet, Vueling, Alitalia maybe it's really hard to keep a good yield on this route (FCO)

Weird for THR also, not CAI, but a good point for us who want to have a cheap leg to CAI for a MR

HalconBCN

Flew AF yesterday BCN to Paris for the last time😔

very uneventful flight, business as usual. No formal announcements etc.

I did speak with crew who all admitted they are very sad the route is being shut down. Advice is to complain to AF - if they receive a lot of complaints from elite pax about the guinea pig routes, they may adjust planning for future routes.

I am afraid though for places like IST it will be Joon-only. According to my information, that allows AF to shut down its airport ticket offices, which obviously is a part of the cost reduction planning.

San Gottardo

So you put Berlin - the capital of Europe's strongest economy with very close ties to France - in the same bucket as Oporto and Naples, but then argue that Lisbon shoudl remain AF because it's a big city? Hmm...

Of course the AF staff are sad. This was one of the routes where they loved to use their employee tickets. Plenty of flights (=good chances of getting a seat), low price, nice weather... Or did you think they had more altruistic reasons why they are sad? Which proves that the AF crew are not millenials.

They are naive to think that pax complaints will make AF change their strategy, let alone switch a route back only after a short while. Not saying that switchbacks will never happen, but it's unlikely that it'll be in-and-out of JOON at very short and frequent intervals.

brunos

One issue might be that Joon gets A320s, which are fairly big planes.
If they don't have the possibility to adapt the plane size within the A32 familiy (as AF does), then they need significant regular traffic.

Goldorak

Very true. I thought the same. Currently AF has a lot of flexibility with all the 32X family to adjust the capacity on all medium-haul routes depending on the route, frequency, time of the day and season. Joon will not have such a flexibility with only the 319 and 320 modules.

Goldorak

A very good article just published in La Tribune (in French) :
https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises...me-760124.html

Travlur

Just found out today that our flights for April, CDG > FCO > CDG, have been switched to Joon. Being the polar opposite of the millennials they seem to target, it should be interesting. Switching well-traveled 50-somethings coming off AF La Premiere connecting flights on to 'hey, we're and airline too' - Joon seems funny to me. I look forward to the smart-casual attired flight attendants I guess. I do try to always travel with a good sense of humor.

And then I just read this on the website: "Our flight attendants will take care of you from boarding to landing, as their white sneakers help them quickly meet your needs. Stylish." Looks like I am going to need that sense of humor.

hfly

brunos, this has been the TK M.O. for close to a decade now. Throw a ton of capacity at a route, upgauge some of the planes and try and push the competitor off the route (not to mention get DHMI in IST to throw dirty tricks at them as well, such is unattractive gates, or no gates, delays, worst baggage reclaim slots, etc), So I have watched as they threw up to 9x a day at TLV and pushed El Al off the route, Up to 4x to MUC to push LH of the route, a ton of lift at Italy up to 5x MXP and 3x FCO - not to mention another half a dozen Italian cities to throw AZ off the routes, 3x to JFK - not to mention another 8 North American cities to throw DL and CO and AC off the routes. While BA is still at it, they are currently down to 1x, while TK does 7-8x a day to the London area, not to mention another 3-4 UK cities.

The biggest problem however has been that in almost every example above, TK actually has offered a better product than the competitors. BA removing catering from short haul (and for their planning purposes IST is short haul) has been DISASTROUS for them in the Turkish market, a market that has very little LCC competition, whereby many O/D pax (and something like 53% of those flying between the London airports and IST are O/D) are choosing TK not because of a better cabin, not because of frequency, but so that they get a free meal. Now AF is repeating that mistake. These are not 1-2 hour little Euro jaunts, these are 4 hour journeys with a 2-3 hour time change. So instead of really bettering the offering (oh yeah there will be paid wifi) they are lowering it, and quite frankly AF does NOT have the marketing chops to make Joon sexy.

Xandrios

...and flights have started. I had to run for my connection so I couldn’t see which destination, however just before boarding the aircraft I was able to snap a pic:

ticino

Oh so they are targeting 18-35 year olds and Joon comes from jeune? I pronounce it differently so I hadn't realised. So they are planning on cheap, younger labour too. Anyone over 30 or slightly overweight will look terrible in sneakers and those uniforms. Hopefully they'll manage to keep their sneakers white or people will start posting pictures of filthy sneakers.

But besides the discriminatory aspect I don't much Joon too much and I doubt most people will even notice. I am -for the moment at least- avoiding AF because of the pathetic spin some union put to the sexual harassment of the Argentinian woman, and AF's response. At least Alaska Airlines apologised. And the crew. Can't believe she was forced to change seats and not the French man. Hope those get transferred to Joon and the lower wages.

brunos

Interesting indeed.

My own take is that AF has decided that future FA recruitment (including replacements of retirees) will be primarily under JOON contract, especially medium haul.
A way to go around current contract conditions at AF.
A tactical rather than strategic option.
All the rest is window dressing. and AF mainline will quickly follow any downgrade in service.