Also a CLOSED rooftop bar: Joon to be merged back into Air France

In a move that should surprise approximately zero readers (and that’s a rough number), more news has come out that Joon is to be spun down and merged back into Air France

Soon to be a closed rooftop bar – Image, Economy Class and Beyond. 

News broke in a tweet earlier today, and has been confirmed by Air France and Joon.

🔴 C’est officiel, c’est terminé !

Ben Smith a décidé d’arrêter l’exploitation de Joon.

Joon sera intégrée à Air France

Lancée le 1 décembre 2017, la compagnie n’a pas su se démarquer & son positionnement est resté ambigu pour les clients du groupe AF/KLM. pic.twitter.com/EjWEuO3WX9

— air plus news (@airplusnews) January 10, 2019

And Air France releasing the information

[PRESS RELEASE] Signature of a new agreement with Flight Attendants and project for Joon’s future

— Air France Newsroom (@AFnewsroom) January 10, 2019

The Press Release

Air France later released a full press release – pasted for eternity

A project for Joon’s future

After much discussion with employees and customers alike, and in consultation with the unions, Air France has decided to launch a project studying the future of the Joon brand and the integration of Joon employees and aircraft into Air France.

Despite the many positive impacts of Joon, in particular the invaluable contribution of the teams at Joon who launched the company and worked with passion and dedication, the brand was difficult to understand from the outset for customers, for employees, for markets and for investors. 

The plurality of brands in the marketplace has created much complexity and unfortunately weakened the power of the Air France brand.

Through integration, Air France would see many benefits thanks to fleet, brand, and product harmonisation. Managing the operation would be improved through a common fleet of aircraft. Air France will also be able to ensure a smooth transition of the Airbus A350, currently on order, to the Air France fleet with a more economical cabin configuration.

All Joon flights currently sold or for sale would of course be operated by Joon until the project is completed, and then taken over by Air France.

The simplification of the brand portfolio, while capitalising on the Air France mother brand, is an undeniable asset for our employees, our customers, and indeed all stake holders. It would also enable Air France to complete this integration without impacting the efficiency of the Air France-KLM Group.

Too many brands, so much confusion

Joon as we all know varied it is the purpose (apart from being a Roof-top bar). In part, it was a way for the airline to pay cabin crew less under a different contract (whilst pilots remained employed as Air France pilots). In some ways, it was an ideas lab they could use – such as streaming IFE boxes, power at the seat, Buy-on-board and trying out different things (such as child bed space idea, pooling cash for flights, end-to-end services etc).

However, there was never any clear distinction between Air France and Joon – for example, if you sat in the business class cabin – it was very much an Air France affair, not a Joon experience), and the Joon brand – whilst targeted at Millennials and those with a millennial sense of mind didn’t’ seem to sit right at all.

The Rooftop Bar remains open… for now.

For now, Joon will continue to operate as normal as Air France considers how to re-integrate the airline. The cabin crew hired by Joon will transfer onto the more lucrative Air France cabin crew contracts. Once the Air France completes integration, the services will switch back to Air France operation.

As for the Joon Experiment. Well, they did want to experiment – with some interesting results.

The cost of that experiment, however, sat with Air France in the end…

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