Sun Country adds 16 routes – but all have direct competition

Nine of Sun Country’s new routes will be from Minneapolis, bringing to 58 the carrier’s network from the airport this year.

Sun Country has announced 16 routes, with the first two – Dallas Fort Worth and Minneapolis to Orange County – taking off on 6 May.

The operating aircraft is scheduled to route Minneapolis – Orange County – Dallas and back.

Nine airports will be added or will resume: Cincinnati; Fairbanks; Hartford; Houston Intercontinental (last served 2012 to 2014); Indianapolis; Jackson Hole; Kalispell; Orange County; and Raleigh Durham.

anna.aero likes how diversified Sun Country’s coming routes are, meaning that it would be very hard for a competitor to predict exactly where it’ll start. 

Not that it would matter much in this instance.  For while all 16 routes will have direct competition, nearly seven in ten will involve network carriers.  Sun Country will target the soft underbelly with very low frequencies – an average of two weekly, for a total of 30.

Indeed, explanations for Sun Country’s coming routes really fall into three beyond leisure-orientated:

• Network carriers and the soft underbelly
• Gaps where network carriers have ended service: Delta from Hartford and Indianapolis to Orlando, and United between San Antonio and Cancun
• Gaps after LCCs have ended them, either permanently or temporarily

Spirit operated Houston Intercontinental to Minneapolis between 2014 and 2019, while Frontier served Minneapolis from both Cincinnati (2017-2019) and Raleigh Durham (2018).  Vivaaerobus will resume Houston Intercontinental to Cancun, which it was to have operate in May, from November.

Sun Country previously operated only one of its 16 routes: Dallas Fort Worth to Puerto Vallarta.  It was served between 2013 and 2018.