IrishFlyer757

-Training Pay/schedule
- $48/hour at 75 hours. Take home is around $1100/2 weeks.

-How long are guys on reserve after initial?
- MUCH longer than originally promised. We had heard 80+ hires in 2017 and that went to 50 or so. I would say you're looking at 10 months + on reserve. NO picking up on off days or moving reserve days. You will fly EVERY day of reserve because they are losing pilots like crazy and utilize reserves due to staffing.
-General QOL items of note (good and bad)?
- Pilot group is FANTASTIC! Great guys/gals and good morale overall. Lots of DH's and long/crappy layovers outweigh any chance of a 48 hours Punta Cana layover at an all-inclusive.

-types of trips still vary with the seasons?
- You will see lots of 2 day trips with a JFK layover (2 mile walk to food or $27 hotel lobby dinner)
- Allegiant sub-service with great layovers in CID or SBN.

Or are junior FO's able to get day trips or 2-3 day trips year round?
- Not likely. Most junior FO's are getting 4-5 days trips and 11-12 days off. They tailor the line construction so the senior guys can keep their coveted 8 hour + day turns and the junior guys fly the leftovers.

If you live in MSP and NEED to be there - consider SY. However, I found the regional I had come from had a better contract generally speaking and I made way more as a CA there flying 100 hours a month with schedule flexibility and generally speaking, comparable layovers.

G4IND

Big changes coming at Sun Country: Travel Weekly

Looks as if SY plans to add routes out of IND, CVG, and MKE

In addition, Sun Country will leverage the flexible lease deals it already has in place on a portion of its 737 fleet to jump in and out of high-demand leisure markets in-season. For example, Sun Country will likely fly from Los Angeles to Hawaii next summer, Bricker said. And it plans to run routes from major Northeast markets to Florida during the 12-week season between February and Easter.

Thoughts? Any routes we will likely see?

beech1980

I'll believe it when I see it. Can't really do much without adding planes. With the constant attrition I don't see how Sun Country could get to 55 planes by 2022. The plan is to return all the -700's, returning one -800 this fall which would mean that in the next 5 years they would need to add 40 -800's.... not sure adding 8 planes a year is feasible with the current contract. With that being said I'm excited for them to try....
Jude mentioned routes from the northeast to FL, PUJ, CUN in the winter as growth. The Hawaii stuff might also come out of another California city as well.
I would imagine he is getting ready to fire lots of people in the office. Sun Country is way over staffed at 92 employees per plane. He said we should be closer to 50.... lots of holiday trimming!

G4IND

According to Jude, "We have an interesting ability to bring in 737-800s from a deal with Transavia, so we can peak up seasonally, allowing us to double our ASMs in March compared with the previous September"

"Sun Country will continue to focus on used 737s, said Bricker. “We currently fly them 10 block hours a day. But we can peak them up in the March period and draw them down in the September period"

So I believe there is some room for expansion, without adding too many planes...

According to this article:https://airwaysmag.com/airlines/sun-country-ceo-vision/

He mentions NE to FL during a 12 month period, and HI and AK during peak summer. Did you hear anything more specific, the article I posted earlier he seemed to be a lot more adventurous in terms of growth outside of MSP.

beech1980

Yes, the growth will primarily come outside of MSP, the Transavia deal is great for winter flying but those planes have to go back to Amsterdam for their busy summer season.
He has talked about adding flights to cities in the Northeast and potentially Canada. Cleveland, Pittsburgh etc..

G4IND

Interesting... Good luck to SY with their expansion plans, and I hope they don't alienate their FFs in MSP.

i fly planes

If Sun Country is already barely making a profit, time will tell whether this works out. For instance, Sun Country announced MSP-Aruba in May. Delta announced by June that it would also provide non-stop from MSP-Aruba. Expansion won't go unnoticed and other carriers can adapt and easily hop in.

G4IND

Exactly, not to mention they're going to try and have a go at seasonal markets with a seasonal presence to match. So it will be very difficult as a mostly unknown carrier to generate awareness in a new market...

So it will be interesting to see what happens....

StoneQOLdCrazy

How is scope?

I mean, can Sun Country lease 737s and fly them with non-Sun Country pilots, on a Sun Country-branded flight? Transavia aircraft and crews, for example?

If so, management's manning problems just evaporated

PiperPower

........... No