Sun Country has added 13 routes from Minneapolis. Unusually for a big announcement, 12 of the 13 are brand-new for the carrier from the Minnesota airport, excluding any very time-limited services and those last served 20+ years ago. Four of the 13 have no head-to-head competition.

13 coming Minneapolis routes

Using details from Sun Country's website, the 13 routes are organized below by start date. New York JFK had Sun Country flights almost continuously from June 1999 until January 2019; it carried 2.2 million in this period. Minneapolis-Detroit was served regularly until November 2001, so long ago that it doesn't count. To Kansas City, Sun Country has benefited from the exit of Southwest (ended May 2020).

Note: I've not included two more routes (St Louis and Milwaukee) as they're simply returning from being served in 2021.

Minneapolis to...

Start date

Flights

Competition (flights in the week Sun Country starts)

Find flights

Charlotte

April 13th

2x weekly

American (28), Delta (21)

Click here for MSP-Charlotte flights

New York JFK

April 13th

4x weekly

Delta (28), JetBlue (14)

Click here for MSP-JFK flights

Atlantic City

May 1st

2x weekly

None

Click here for MSP-Atlantic City flights

Columbus

May 4th

2x weekly

Delta (27)

Click here for MSP-Columbus flights

Louisville

May 4th

2x weekly

Delta (14)

Click here for MSP-Louisville flights

Detroit

May 5th

2x weekly (later 4x)

Delta (35), Spirit (7)

Click here for MSP-Detroit flights

Richmond

May 19th

2x weekly

None

Click here for MSP-Richmond flights

Omaha

May 26th

2x weekly

Delta (27)

Click here for MSP-Omaha flights

Kansas City

May 29th

2x weekly

Delta (27)

Click here for MSP-Kansas City flights

Wilmington (NC)

June 1st

2x weekly

None

Click here for MSP-Wilmington flights

Colorado Springs

June 8th

2x weekly

None

Click here for MSP-Colorado Springs flights

Traverse City

June 16th

2x weekly

Delta (8)

Click here for MSP-Traverse City flights

Rapid City

June 19th

2x weekly

Delta (21)

Click here for MSP-Rapid City flights

Sun Country's 13 coming routes
Image: GCMap.

Richmond and Colorado Springs

Neither city is a stranger to Minneapolis. According to US Department of Transportation data, Delta (and before that Northwest) served Richmond between October 2002 and December 2021, almost always with RJs, latterly CRJ-900s. Some 786,000 passengers flew nonstop. At specific points, as recently as 2019, the route had 3x daily flights. DOT data shows that, in 2021, 46% of the Minneapolis-Richmond passengers were point-to-point.

Colorado Springs, meanwhile, had Northwest/Delta Minneapolis flights between April 1995 and August 2012; the pair carried 2.1 million passengers. After a long gap, Frontier operated 3x weekly summer-seasonally from April 2018-November 2019. It carried 47,000 passengers and had a seat load factor of 80%. Sun Country hopes that its 2x weekly will help achieve higher SLFs.

Sun Country Airlines
Photo: Sun Country.

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Atlantic City and Wilmington

These cities have never had scheduled Minneapolis flights. Given Atlantic City has no hub carrier, booking data to/from Minneapolis isn't good: most passengers flew elsewhere and drove. But booking data is available for Wilmington.

Between January and September 2022, the North Carolina airport had about 8,000 roundtrip Minneapolis passengers, all flying via a hub. In the full year 2019, about 12,000. Running between June 1st and September 4th, Sun Country will have 28 roundtrip Minneapolis-Wilmington flights in the peak season.

Sun Country Airlines Boeing 737
Photo: Sun Country.

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76 summer Minneapolis routes

As of November 15th, Sun Country expects to serve 76 airports from Minneapolis next summer. Las Vegas has the most flights, followed by Orlando, Fort Myers, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Cancun, Tampa, Denver, and Miami. In joint tenth place are Eau Clare (which begins on December 1st) and San Diego.

Have you flown Sun Country recently? If so, share your experiences in the comments.