Sun Country bolsters booming cargo business as passenger traffic eases

Sun Country Airlines is putting more resources toward its profitable cargo-flying operation this year as the Minneapolis-based carrier continues to see moderating passenger revenue.

By late summer, the leisure carrier will have added eight more freight planes to its fleet, bringing its total number to 20. The business of carrying packages for Amazon is growing faster than the company can build up, according to executives, with revenue in that area expected to double by February 2026.

Passenger revenue still accounted for $914 million of Sun Country’s revenue in 2024, though that figure declined compared to 2023 as scheduled service dipped by 9.9%, and expenses like landing fees and airport rent grew, according to a Tuesday news release.

During a call with analysts Tuesday morning, CEO Jude Bricker acknowledged the continued investment into cargo while highlighting strategic plans for delivering passenger service in the years ahead.

“I think the innovation that Sun Country brings to the market is that we basically say at any moment in time, ‘What’s the best thing a plane can do right now?‘” Bricker said.

Cargo is one of three legs, alongside traditional passenger and chartered flights, that make up Sun Country’s unique business model. As many airlines struggled through challenges the COVID-19 pandemic wrought, the company has grown and become one of the most profitable in the nation.

Sun Country has focused on facilitating routes in underserved markets, partly because its smaller fleet is better equipped to handle lower passenger demand than larger airlines. That makes Sun Country’s scheduling model “fundamentally different,” Bricker said, highlighting its flexibility to enter and exit markets quickly.

“We are keeping our footprint down, in these really, what I would consider, strategically important markets,” he said.

Core markets for Sun Country remain “really strong,” Bricker said, such as Phoenix, Fort Myers, Fla., Orlando and Las Vegas.

Bricker said commercial passenger revenue should return to growth once six passenger planes bought from and leased back to Oman Air and FlyDubai join Sun Country’s fleet in 2026.

Sun Country reported $13.4 million in net income on $260.4 million in total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2024, a new record that beat the previous year’s earnings from the same time frame by 6.1%.

Diluted earnings for the quarter came in at $0.24 per share, a 140% increase compared the same time in 2023.

On chartered flights, Sun Country notched total revenue at $48 million, representing a 2.3% increase compared to the same period in 2023. This came despite fuel prices coming in lower than expected with contracted charters for casinos and the NCAA.

Sun Country put up other record numbers in year-over-year comparisons.

Total revenue last year reached $1.076 billion, the highest the company has reported in a single year. Diluted earnings per share for the full year amounted to 96 cents.

The results outperformed most analysts’ expectations for the quarter. Analysts were expecting adjusted earnings of 20 cents per share on sales of $257.3 million.

A mid-January report from London-based bank Barclays ranked Sun Country on the high end of the airline spectrum, predicting earnings per share for the calendar year would reach 97 cents thanks to an expected boost in freight operations as well as contractual rate increases in its cargo business.

Operating out of Terminal 2, Sun Country remains the No. 2 carrier at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP), according to a year-end traffic report from the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) last week. Sun Country held 11.5% in passenger market share behind Delta Air Lines at nearly 70%.

In 2024, Sun Country also carried nearly 59 million pounds of cargo for Amazon at MSP, according to MAC. That represented a 21% increase from 2023.

Sun Country employs approximately 3,000 people, mostly based in Minnesota.