Earlier today, Air France-KLM announced the launch of a new airline called JOON. According to a Bloomberg article, JOON “will initially offer medium-haul services from the airline’s Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport base and begin long-haul routes in mid-2018.”
The airline does not appear to have acquired either the Joon.com domain name or the Joon.fr ccTLD domain name. The Joon.com domain name is owned by Canada-based Netincome Ventures, Inc. and Joon.fr is owned by a French event firm. Joon.com is currently monetized with advertising links, and the top of the landing page indicates that the domain name may be available for sale via the Uniregistry domain brokerage. Joon.fr is being used by the event firm.
According to the brand’s Facebook page, the company plans to use the FlyJoon.com domain name for its website. When I visited FlyJoon.com, I was forwarded to a page within Air France’s website. Here’s how Air France described the brand name on its website:
“Short, powerful and international, JOON’s name was conceived to speak to people all around the world.”
The brand name is interesting because of the pronunciation of the word. In the US (and possibly other English speaking countries), the word JOON sounds like the word June. In French, I believe the JOON sound would be spelled Juin (although there could be a difference in pronunciation between JOON and Juin). This could end up being a bit confusing for people who search Google for the airline’s name using an alternative spelling.
If the company intends to “speak to people all around the world,” it might want to buy the exact match .com domain name. It does not appear that JOON is going to begin operating for a few months, so perhaps the company will upgrade its domain name in the meantime.
I will add this domain name to my DomainTools Whois Monitor list to see if it changes hands.
Update: It looks like Air France now owns Joon.fr
Nothing new here, a rebrand in the making.
IMO, when a major $$$ company announces a new brand, they should get the proper domain name(s).
Seems to be an ongoing and overlooked (professionally neglected) yet critical element. I find this happening regularly with client strt-ups or new ventures. Digital Assets are not taken seriously, often until it’s too late.
why not Joon.aero ? ( if they miss joon.com )
Because that would be confusing and the vast majority of people who see that wouldn’t even know it was a url.
Joon doesn’t sound like Juin in french trust me 😉
Maybe more like “Joue” “Play” in english
Yes, that’s crazy…
@Xavier.xyz
It also sounds jeune = young.
There are at least six federally registered trademarks for “JOON” listed at USPTO.gov. None are for an airline.
One is for “coconut sugar” filed as recently as March 2017.
Meanwhile, JOON.com is open for offers at Sedo.com with a $10,000 minimum offer.
Looks like Joon.fr is now available for sale:
https://twitter.com/Joon_Creative/status/895618580720623616
Looks like Air France has acquired Joon.fr.