Rumours very often have a basis in truth. And the rumour that has been circulating for several weeks on a possible shutdown of JoonAir France's hybrid subsidiary, seems to have found a home within the airline itself. It has to be said that Joon has still not proved its worth, just one year after its launch: Joon was supposed to enable Air France to operate certain short- and long-haul routes while making substantial savings on operating costs, particularly by serving routes where low-cost competition is intense.
On short-haul routes, Joon has positioned itself at Barcelona and Berlintwo cities where traffic is dominated by low-cost carriers. On the long-haul route, Joon has launched services to two new destinations which, a priori, have a high proportion of leisure traffic: the Seychelles and Fortaleza, in Brazil, to which Quito will be added next spring. The idea of serving destinations with lower unit passenger revenue has been abandoned for the time being. We could have imagined Joon landing in Bangkok, Dakar or Orlando, routes where unit passenger revenue is generally low.
Joon's style and service are intended to be younger and more up to date, with more flexible staff and lower prices than their Air France counterparts. The daily Les Echos reported that Joon had succeeded in attracting return to equilibrium the CDG hub's network of medium-haul routes, with load factors of 90 % and operating costs down 15%.
Air France plans to add a few new destinations for Joon in its summer 2019 schedule. But this is a far cry from the strategic deployment of a low-cost/hybrid product such asEurowings for Lufthansa or Level for IAG. Some voices within Air France would like to that Joon does not disappearbut embraces the long-haul low-cost concept. This would allow it to acquire its own identity and, above all, would enable the Air France group to be more present in all travel segments and to test new long-haul markets.
It would appear that Benjamin Smith has also come round to the idea of keeping Joon. But it is likely that the company will have to evolve its strategy marketing and make even greater use of synergies with the parent company. Just as Eurowings is now for Lufthansa! Will Joon finally become the real French long-haul low-cost answer?
