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Air France said on Monday that Joon would start off by flying to
six destinations.
Starting from December 1, Joon will fly to four cities in Europe
- Barcelona, Berlin, Lisbon and Porto. It will then fly to
Fortaleza in Brazil and the Seychelles from the end of March
2018.
Single fares to the European cities will start from 39 euros,
while fares to Brazil and the Seychelles will range from 249-299
euros respectively.
Joon will be hiring 1,000 cabin crew staff between now and 2020,
Air France chief executive Franck Terner told reporters. The
airline will initially use A340 aircraft on long-haul routes and
switch to more modern A350 planes from 2019.
Joon, which is targeting the 'Millennials' generation, will be
run by Jean-Michel Mathieu, who has been involved with the
project since the start and has held various positions in sales,
digital and revenue management within the Air France-KLM group.
Air France wants to bring down costs in order to compete better
against Gulf carriers on long-haul routes, and against budget
carriers on short-haul routes.
Other airlines stepping up their low-cost offerings include
British Airways' owner IAG <ICAG.L>, Lufthansa's <LHAG.DE>
Eurowings and Canada's WestJet <WJA.TO>, while problems at
Ryanair <RYA.I> have also highlighted the fight for passengers
in the sector.
In July, Air France-KLM offered optimism on pricing for the rest
of the year, after good travel demand resulted in better than
expected second-quarter profit.
(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Victoria
Bryan)
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