Sun Country Airlines on Tuesday unveiled 19 new routes and seven new airports in what the budget carrier is calling the “largest network expansion” in its history.
The new services come as the Eagan-based company rolled out its summer schedule, which will see it shift aircraft onto summer-oriented routes as it winds down seasonal service to winter destinations.
The summer schedule expansion includes eight new routes from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, home to Sun County’s biggest base.
The new nonstop routes from MSP are: Chicago O’Hare; Newark, N.J.; Philadelphia; Providence, R.I.; Sacramento, Calif.; St. Louis; San Antonio; and Washington Dulles.
There are also new routes from Dallas-Fort Worth; Las Vegas; Nashville, Tenn.; Portland, Ore., and San Francisco.
The new dots being added to Sun Country’s route map are Chicago O’Hare; Newark; Philadelphia; Sacramento; San Antonio; Providence; and Washington Dulles. Sun Country has served some of those destinations previously, including Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles.
With the new schedule, Sun Country says it will “operate a total of 86 routes across 53 airports, which marks a nearly 40 percent growth in routes served since June 2018.”
The move comes as Sun Country transforms itself under new management, moving from a niche carrier based that had focused mostly on Minnesota to a full-fledged, fee-heavy “ultra low-cost” model that has an increasingly national scope.
“Today is a very exciting day in the history of Sun Country as we make this tremendous step forward in growing our airline,” Sun Country CEO Jude Bricker said in a statement. “This network expansion allows us to provide even more destination options to our community, create new jobs in the Twin Cities market and further our reach across the country.”
Sun Country, which originally operated as a charter airline serving winter vacationers until 1999, said it expects to expand its local workforce by 10 percent…
We are thrilled to announce our largest route expansion in company history! We’ve added 19 new routes and seven new airports to our family. https://t.co/kLQFAQ2yfc #MySunCountry #travel pic.twitter.com/CqDMObCQVS
— Sun Country Airlines (@SunCountryAir) 8 de enero de 2019
