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(Boeing)Sun Country Airlines will lay off nearly 30 percent of its pilots starting May 1 in response to rising fuel costs.

The Mendota Heights-based low-cost carrier sent out letters to its pilots last Friday, telling them of the temporary move, said Wendy Blackshaw, an airline spokeswoman.

"We are not going to be flying as much this summer because of rising fuel prices," Blackshaw said today. The company has 156 pilots, and 45 received the letters sent out last week.

"They won't fly at all" from May until the end of October, she said, but will continue to accrue seniority. The 45 pilots are expected to be back on Oct. 31, she said.

"We very much regret having to take this action, both from the personal impact on pilots and their families but for the airline," the carrier said in a statement this afternoon. "This represents a deep pool of talent."

Sun Country is structuring the cut flights to keep passenger service close to what it is now, she said. "The flights we've taken out are primarily the ones that weren't as profitable," she said. "We haven't eliminated any routes."

Might Sun Country passengers notice that the remaining flights are little more full than they had been?

"If we cancel a red-eye to L.A., the hope is that someone would take the daytime flight to L.A.," she said, and they might notice more full seats on that flight, she said.

Major carriers, including Northwest, have also indicated they'll likely cut flights in the coming months to

adjust to rising fuel costs. Champion Air, a Twin Cities charter carrier, said Monday it will cease operations May 31. That move will affect 550 workers.

Bigflya

Aloha, Champion, and now this. Airplanes are mostly full now. Airlines just need to figure out how to pass fuel costs onto the tickets. Reducing capacity will not help that much if the flying public will not pay more for tickets. I see the majors furloughing after the summer flying schedule if oil stays at $100 coupled with a recession. May God help us all.

Spooled

Don't they do this every summer?

Adola

What would Alfred Kahn do?...

IHateMgmt

They do have a history of seasonal furloughing, but haven't done that in a while. Sad news.

crewdawg52

Seems to me that they would want them for the summer travel season, and let them go during the "slow" fall season.

MTOP

An incontrovertible law of airline economics is you cannot shrink your way to profitability. Your comment about finding away to pass fuel cost on is right, because another unavoidable law of economics is that a company cannot continue to sell a product below cost--something the airlines have been doing for years with disasterous financial results.

If they think things are bad now, just wait until October rolls around. By then, a clearer picture of the depth and breadth of the credit crisis will have wreaked its toll on the markets.

Andy

He'd tell you that deregulation is great.

Let me know when he dies. I want to **** on his grave even more than I want to **** on Lorenzo's grave.

IHateMgmt

Sun Country's busy season is fall to spring break as they mostly cater to us northerners that need to thaw out in Mexico. I think they just about double their flights during the winter season and they have a deal worked out with some airline in Europe to trade planes back and forth from winter to summer.

BenFluth216

Yes they do, as they send back the 5-6 leased aircraft and 1-2 of their own to Transavia for the Summer/Fall season.