Air France launches an 'airline for millennials' and it's beyond cringe
One day a well-meaning Air France operative came up with a brilliant idea: a low-cost subsidiary airline for millennials.
There's nothing extremely new or groundbreaking in that. Airlines have been targeting millennials since, well, the term millennials was first used to design a specifically global, urban, travel-minded generation that obsessively posts pictures of avocado on toast on Instagram.
But any marketing campaign focusing on Generation Y, or those born after 1980, is going to inevitably pigeonhole millions of people into a few, damning stereotypes while carefully avoiding the real problems they face, namely "the perfect storm of debt, housing and joblessness," as The Guardian put it.
Enter our Air France operative. One must wonder whether they deliberately stuffed their pitch for a spin-off "airline for millennials" with all the tired cliches they could find. Seriously though. It's so cringeworthy that it seems like a B-rate parody of a Wes Anderson movie.
The airline is called "Joon" (inspired by K-Pop perhaps?) and it has a pervasive, irritating, Instagram-friendly electric blue design. It's literally everywhere, from the plane seats to the incredibly fashionable, Navy-style outfits -- "chic sportswear look" -- worn by the two members of the cabin crew dancing La La Land-French-style in the promotional video:
But there's more.
"Joon is a fashion brand, a rooftop bar, an entertainment channel, a personal assistant … and Joon does flying too!" says the press release, which underestimates millennials ability to see behind the buzzwords.
From 1 December 2017, Joon will run flights, starting from 39 euros one way, to various European destinations, including Barcelona and Berlin.
Did we mention that Joon is "a rooftop bar" -- offering organic treats and vitamin-filled fruit juices -- and an entertainment channel, which allows to "access in-flight streaming, on their own smartphone, tablet or laptop." What's on offer in Joon entertainment channel? RedBullTV and Viceland (because that's what all millennials watch....isn't it?)
Naturally, everyone would love to get that perfectly ripe organic avocado while watching Action Bronson on Viceland. It's just ridiculously amusing that this perfectly fits the image of the stereotypical millennial in the eye of a marketing genius.
Joon's personal assistant also comes straight from an academic study on Generation Y -- you can even get tourism advice form Airbnb.
But perhaps the most head-scratching, face-palming feature is the "AlloSky Virtual Reality Headset". That is, VR headsets for your in-flight escapism.
Here's the description of the feature:
The AlloSky Virtual Reality Headset will be available to Business customers on long-haul flights in collaboration with SkyLights. This new generation headset provides several innovations such as a high-definition screen and a diopter correction to adapt to everyone’s eyes. It can be connected individually to each seat.
So let us get this right: AirFrance believes debt-ridden, job-seeking millennials are going to purchase a blisteringly expensive Business class ticket to satisfy their obsessive thirst for VR because, you know, they're so geeky that everything techie must appeal them!
Bad news -- some already believe that VR is so dead.
Oh dear.
