Millennial Airline Joon Adding Flights To Cairo, Tehran, And More

Back in July Air France revealed the details of Joon, their confusing new airline targeted at millennials. Joon will be based at Paris Charles de Gaulle, and will begin operating flights as of tomorrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXls9p8um04

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The airline will initially operate flights to the following destinations using A320s and A321s:

• Barcelona, Spain (51 weekly flights)
• Berlin, Germany (37 weekly flights)
• Lisbon, Portugal (28 weekly flights)
• Porto, Portugal (3 weekly flights)

Well, Joon has now revealed their next destinations, which launch as of March 25, 2018:

• Cairo, Egypt (7 weekly flights)
• Istanbul, Turkey (7 weekly flights)
• Naples, Italy (14 weekly flights)
• Oslo, Norway (18 weekly flights)
• Rome, Italy (49 weekly flights)

Then in early April they’ll launch flights to the following destinations:

• Cape Town, South Africa (3 weekly flights)
• Tehran, Iran (3 weekly flights)

The short-haul flights will be flown by A320s and A321s, while their longhaul routes will initially be flown by A340s, and eventually will also be flown by some A350s. Maybe it’s just me, but when I think of destinations frequented by millennials, Cairo and Tehran aren’t the first ones to come to mind.

At that point their route network will look as follows:

This is just such a confused airline. While other airlines are introducing ultra low cost carriers, Joon is an airline with inefficient planes (including A340s), pilots that are paid the same as on Air France mainline, and surprisingly limited fees. Furthermore, they’re not using the airline to start new routes, but are largely using it to replace existing flights that are presently operated by Air France.

Their unique proposition seems to be that their flight attendants wear sneakers, that they have virtual reality headsets in longhaul business class, and that about 20% of their buy on board snacks are organic.

Joon A320 cabin

So what’s in it for Air France? They were able to get this concept past their flight attendant union, meaning they were able to hire flight attendants under a lower pay scale, which saves them some money. But is that really worth starting a new airline over, and especially one that isn’t otherwise really differentiated?

Here’s a video about the first Joon A320 being reconfigured:

🔵 Le voici fin prêt à décoller ! Dans les coulisses de l'aménagement du 1er #A320 de @weflyjoon. RDV le 1er décembre pour le 1er vol ✈️ pic.twitter.com/4nchc5xcM7

— Air France Newsroom (@AFnewsroom) November 23, 2017

As Willie Walsh, CEO of IAG (the parent company of British Airways, Iberia, etc.) was quoted as saying in a Bloomberg article:

IAG CEO Willie Walsh said Joon was a “hybrid” rather than “a very low-cost operation,” adding: “I’m not sure what Air France is doing there.”

I’m with you, Willie…