note

Sun Country Airlines was founded as charter airline by Braniff's former employees lead by Captain Jim Olsen. Airline was owned by MLT Vacations (51%) of Minneapolis which used to charter Braniff jets for their travel packages. Operations commenced in January 30th 1983 with an Air Florida Boeing 727 which had been originally ordered by Braniff as N484BN but was delivered to Air Florida. The first route was from Sioux City to Las Vegas. Airline turned profit first year of operations and grew steadily since. In 1986 first wide-body Douglas DC-10 was leased which was used on International charters and dense Las Vegas routes. In 1988 airline was sold to Minnesota banker John Barry who greatly expanded operations. In 1989 Sun Country became part of Civil Reserve Air Fleet and provided charters for the US Military. In 1996 Sun Country began to offer discounted fares from Minneapolis to New York and Boston competing head to head with Northwest which enjoyed monopoly at Minneapolis airport. This lead to price war and Sun Country had to retreat. In 1997 another investor Bill LaMacchia took control of Sun Country and decided to turn it into full service scheduled carrier. New jets, Boeing 737-800s were ordered which was departure from Sun Countrys tradition of keeping costs down. Debt grew and by the fall 2001, when airline traffic fell sharply, Sun Country ran into financial difficulties. The situation culminated in shutting down all operations on December 7th 2001. In 2002 new investors were secured and the founder Jim Olsen together with new management begun to turn things around early in 2002. In October 2006 another investor Tom Peters gained control of SCA. FBI arrested Tom Peters in October 2008 on charges of embezzelment. As a result SCA filled for bankruptcy few days later. Current president Stan Gadek managed to turn things around and airline posted profit in Fall 2008 despite of record high fuel prices. Sun Country operates scheduled flights from its base in Minneapolis to New York, Las Vegas, San Diego, Phoenix, Orlando, Branson MO, Cancun and Dallas Ft. Worth. Bulk of its operations are still seasonal charters into Mexico, Florida, Caribbean, Alaska and Southwest USA. In 2020 SCA commenced B737-800F operations for Amazon Prime Air

founded - demised (age)

1982 - present  (43years)

headquarters

1300 Mendota Heights Road, St Paul MN

web

www.suncountry.com

official

base airports

KMSP International Minneapolis - St Paul

Base

related operators

Amazon Prime Air

CMI Partner