What will be JOON's first [last] routes?

Old Dec 2, 2017, 3:43 am
  #121  
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Originally Posted by hfly
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.
Is it a mistake, though? You are assuming that it is worth it for LH, BA, AF, etc... to join TK in the race for IST customers. It may not be worth their while to try to pour good money after bad for that purpose. Realistically, TK is always going to outdo them on both frequency and service. Some business is just not worth pursuing. Moreover, the current conjuncture is hardly conducive to increasing traffic. If IST was a key route for any of the EUropeans, then it might perhaps be worth fighting. But it is not.

As to there being no LCC competition, there might not be Europe-based LCC competition, but there is Turkey-based LCC competition (Pegasus, Atlas Global). Easyjet used to fly to SAW but it looks that they no longer do. I guess that European LCCs are experiencing the same thing as European network carriers, namely that they cannot match the lower costs of their Turkish equivalents.
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Old Dec 2, 2017, 4:00 am
  #122  
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Originally Posted by NickB
Is it a mistake, though? You are assuming that it is worth it for LH, BA, AF, etc... to join TK in the race for IST customers. It may not be worth their while to try to pour good money after bad for that purpose. Realistically, TK is always going to outdo them on both frequency and service. Some business is just not worth pursuing. Moreover, the current conjuncture is hardly conducive to increasing traffic. If IST was a key route for any of the EUropeans, then it might perhaps be worth fighting. But it is not.

As to there being no LCC competition, there might not be Europe-based LCC competition, but there is Turkey-based LCC competition (Pegasus, Atlas Global). Easyjet used to fly to SAW but it looks that they no longer do. I guess that European LCCs are experiencing the same thing as European network carriers, namely that they cannot match the lower costs of their Turkish equivalents.
Agreed.
TK has a much more compelling motivation and the economics are in their favor.
Why would AF or others compete just for the sake of competing.
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Old Dec 2, 2017, 6:51 am
  #123  
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Originally Posted by brunos
Agreed.
TK has a much more compelling motivation and the economics are in their favor.
Why would AF or others compete just for the sake of competing.
Agreed too. And do not forget that, outside TK competition, another important reason why all airlines have stopped or reduced IST drastically is because of the political and terrorism risk situation of the country. TK has also axed many routes and reduced frequencies to many others.
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Old Dec 2, 2017, 7:22 am
  #124  
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Not so much, they did get rid of a few routes, reduce frequency on some others, but then increased frequency on some and started a few new routes. Also some of those axed routes/frequencies were new and or speculative (Freidrichaven) while some of the reductions were part of their shock and awe increases to drive other carriers away, such as MUC and BCN So its about even, or in fact slightly bigger than before. Yes, we all know of the issues that Turkey has had the last two years, these airline movements mostly proceeded these (i.e. DL announced that it was suspending the route in April of 2016, having already been on their winter break since October 1 or so 2015. Things only "really" got bad from the end of June). As far as the LCC effect, Atlas Global is no longer a LCC, they have taken the step of trying to be a real carrier with Business Class and the like. Pegasus does exist, but mostly from SAW. The issue(s) with LCC's is that they start to make less sense when flights go over 3-4 hours, which is why they have not been as big from western European airports to Turkey.

Costs are really not the defining factor in this. The planes cost the same, the fuel costs the same. The pilots (now) cost the same. Ground staff and F/A's cost less. Catering costs more (mainly because they have it and many others now do not).

Actually Nick, it was not "good money after bad" for these airlines, they WERE all profitable out of IST, quite frankly they were too lazy to do anything when TK became a serious competitor.
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Old Dec 2, 2017, 10:41 am
  #125  
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Originally Posted by hfly
The issue(s) with LCC's is that they start to make less sense when flights go over 3-4 hours, which is why they have not been as big from western European airports to Turkey.
Air Asia, Air Arabia, Norwegian clearly have not received the memo on this one.
European LCCs do have flights of that duration or longer (TLV, HRG, LCA, etc...) or even Turkish leisure destinations on a seasonal basis (AYT, ADB, BJV, ...) but not IST. Clearly, though, they are not going to make much money on IST routes when you can routinely get TK or KK flights from LON to IST at 85 return, with decent catering included.
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Old Dec 2, 2017, 10:45 am
  #126  
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Originally Posted by hfly
Actually Nick, it was not "good money after bad" for these airlines, they WERE all profitable out of IST, quite frankly they were too lazy to do anything when TK became a serious competitor.
Oh, come on: TK has been dumping tons of capacity at bargain bucket prices. No Western European airline can sustain this.
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Old Dec 2, 2017, 1:37 pm
  #127  
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Nick, notice in the statement that I made the word "were" and notice how several posts back I referred very explicitly to their way of driving other carriers off a route pair where I cited TLV, MUC, MXP, etc. When these things happened these other carriers did NOTHING to combat it. Also I think that in your penultimate post you have confused charter airlines and destinations with what we are talking about here. Seasonal ops to Bodrum, or any other bucket and spade trade are really a different conversation.

Having flown the IST-LHR route pair possible than any other living person, I can tell you that unless you are buying at some special sale time, do so extremely far in advance, and the moon and stars are in some sort of celestial alignment, 85 quid return is not routine at all, whichever direction you are starting from. Also perversely, for at least the last 8 years TK Business fares are almost always more expensive than BA's. KK is a different deal because you are talking about a far inferior airport.

Also, should I have to state short haul LCC's with short haul a/c as yes Norwegian does do long haul with 787's, Air Asia X with A330's. Air Arabia is/does what you say, but their model is slightly different.
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Old Dec 2, 2017, 1:38 pm
  #128  
 
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Flew the first Joon fight from Berlin yesterday. It was 35 minutes delayed p!so great start haha.

Balloons everywhere and we were handing hardback picture books about French air travel. We were giving moist towelettes upon boarding. Seats had USB inputs in the armrests, and the buy on board menu was heavily promoted.

Other than that, this was no difference than any other airline I’ve ever flown - although it felt as if it was one announcement after another, like nonstop the whole 1:15 trip. The tagline repeated at every announcement was awkward and forced, and the tagline which I forget makes no sense anyway.

I franky don't understand this “airline” idea and the logo is hideous.
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Old Dec 3, 2017, 3:20 am
  #129  
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Originally Posted by hfly
Also, should I have to state short haul LCC's with short haul a/c as yes Norwegian does do long haul with 787's, Air Asia X with A330's. Air Arabia is/does what you say, but their model is slightly different.
This will be my last post on this topic not to prolong thread drift indefinitely but DY flies from Scandinavia to, among others, TLV, LCA, AYT, TFS, FNC, RAK, AGP, FAO, LPA, FUE, ALC, BCN, PMI, ATH, MLA or FCO with short-haul equipment. These are flights in the 1100-1500m range or more, i.e. comparable to IST-Western Europe. Air Asia also flies routes of comparable length (eg: KUL-HKG or KUL-MNL) with short-haul equipment. These are not Air Asia X routes.
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Old Dec 3, 2017, 10:39 am
  #130  
 
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I flew with Joon last Friday on their first day of operation in both Business and Economy, I have written 2 comprehensive trip reports (in french) for those interested:

CDG-BCN in C: https://flight-report.com/fr/report/...-Barcelona-BCN
BCN-CDG in Y: https://flight-report.com/fr/report/...-BCN-Paris-CDG

Last edited by Leadership; Dec 3, 2017 at 10:57 am
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Old Dec 3, 2017, 12:32 pm
  #131  
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Originally Posted by Leadership
I flew with Joon last Friday on their first day of operation in both Business and Economy, I have written 2 comprehensive trip reports (in french) for those interested:

CDG-BCN in C: https://flight-report.com/fr/report/...-Barcelona-BCN
BCN-CDG in Y: https://flight-report.com/fr/report/...-BCN-Paris-CDG
Thanks for this. ^
All in all, this seems pretty much in line with what we expected.
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Old Dec 3, 2017, 9:14 pm
  #132  
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Yes Air Asia flies a few longer ones on s/h aircraft, primarily as a reaction to MH having reduced much of its schedule over the last couple of years. Regarding Norwegian, there is a big difference between let's say 1001 miles and 1501 miles, and still more than half of the routes you cite are still bucket and spade, or migrant worker routes which were/are traditionally Charter routes, that really are not part of this conversation, even if flown in a scheduled manner.

The point actually is that if AF/KL decided after 2008 or so to consolidate its operations in IST by both INCREASING its airlift, at one point 4x IST-CDG, the stupid Toulouse flight and have 3x KL to AMS, but to then merge its workforce, then reduce its workforce, getting rid of most of its sales and service people and either centralizing these functions out of country while also using third party workers AND replacing the few that were left with cheaper newbies that were not experienced in sales in marketing, then of course they were going to have difficulties against an expanding TK.
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Old Dec 3, 2017, 11:26 pm
  #133  
 
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I lost track of what point we are trying to prove or disprove regarding Turkish airlines, but if you look for an airline that does long flights in Europe as scheduled carrier connecting big cities, look at TAP, or Finnair. Albeit fewer in numbers, both airlines have some flights on short haul material lasting three or four hours. Also most European airlines flights to Moscow are between three and four hours as well.
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Old Dec 4, 2017, 2:42 am
  #134  
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Originally Posted by San Gottardo
I lost track of what point we are trying to prove or disprove regarding Turkish airlines.
hfly was trying to argue that there is no competition from LCCs on routes like IST-Western Europe (so routes between around 1100 like FRA-IST or around 1500 like LON-IST) because they are too long to make sense for an LCC and there is no significant saving to be made for an LCC model with routes that long. I then came back with several counter-examples to which hfly replied with "Yes but what have the Romans done for us?"*-type arguments. I am not sure that we need to pursue this further as we are getting further and further from the topic of the thread.

Last edited by NickB; Dec 4, 2017 at 2:48 am
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Old Dec 4, 2017, 2:47 am
  #135  
 
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Originally Posted by NickB
hfly was trying to argue that there is no competition from LCCs on routes like IST-Western Europe (so routes between around 1100 like FRA-IST or around 1500 like LON-IST) because they are too long to make sense for an LCC and there is no significant saving to be made for an LCC model with routes that long. I then came back with several counter-examples to which hfly replied with "Yes but what have the Romans done for us?"-type arguments. I am not sure that we need to pursue this further as we are getting further and further from the topic of the thread.
OK, thanks for clarifying. Of course my points are then completely irrelevant.
No LCC on long routes? Plenty, you are right. Southwest, Spirit, arguably JetBlue and WestJet, GOL... (just picked up examples from Asia up-thread so I throw in these examples from the Western Hemisphere)

Agree with you this has little to do with JOON.
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