Sun country grew because
 

Their alpa pilot group almost struck over their contract Thad then won a grey contract thence the pilot group et al. Company grew. Strange treat your people well and the company grows.

Sunny guy here…
 

I am Fairly new at Sunny this year-

Jude bricker our CEO has been JONESIN for widebodies. In a recent article he wants to see one on property in the next five years, specifically Prime Air Financed then our own for PAX and charters…we got rumors over here that we might be apart of this deal with Atlas to get access now to widebodies because we don’t have the capability to launch a wide body today.

No idea if this makes any sense- but our new contract is pretty sweet and attrition has slowed considerably in the last few months. This month for FO and Cap we have almost every day 200 to 350 percent pick up open time trips. Big money this month for us.

Apollo has done a few buy-and-merge deals in the past so it would make sense. Of all the mergers rumors, I don't think anyone ever threw out Sun Country as a potential partner.
It would create a lot of synergies and it could be a good win-win for everyone.

So my crazy thinking on this: Apollo buys Atlas. Merges Sun Country and Atlas. Makes Sun Country management the management group for all. Then the SC management gets their wish of widebodies.

look at the pay rate table for sun country. The 737 tops out at 294 an hour, it’s the highest 737 rate under contract anywhere. The wide body rates are also pretty impressive. 350 an hour for the A330.
Apollo has slowly been cashing out. They own less than 51% of the company now.
it takes a good group of execs and management along with willing investors to make a successful airline. Sun country finally got that. The growth plan is impressive. Apollo was the best thing for the pilots at this airline. If it were ran like it was before Apollo came in Covid would’ve shut it down. It was run by very inept guys. Not airline savvy at all…

Also
 

To add to the possibilities*

Our union wants the company to provide positive space travel. We have a significant number of commuters here now and in line in training- many of our pilots who leave is simply because of commuting- getting access to your gateway positive space travel would be a huge win for our pilot group.

Also- technically* our new contract is an MOU…we are still finalizing our new contract from 2015…merging the best of both companies contracts for a unified contract may be a good time now…

Granted- I know nothing. But I always balked at us joining another tradition PAX ULCC. Jude wants to grow cargo and wants wide bodies…I think if there is a merger with sun country it would come from the ATI/ABX/Atlas business space. Amazon wants us to take on more but at the moment we are staff constrained.

IF there were a merger in the future, it will be interesting for sure. At this stage pure speculation.
Atlas is a good place to work- but not a carrier (retirement needs big time adjustments like 15% dc, ect)
I hear great things about Sun Country and their pilots seem pretty happy too. Plus they are ALPA

Things definitely could get very interesting next year to say the least. The sale has to go through first before anything happens to Atlas- good or bad.

In June we did get an email stating a demand for 737 instructors despite there being no additional 737s added. Maybe this is part of a potential merger.

Food for the rumor mill

That's mostly because a lot of instructors bid off the airplane once the SOC happened.

Sun Country was IPO'd a year and a half ago. Apollo no longer owns it or has a controlling position.