2008 has brought bad news for almost every business modality concerned with fuel. The sudden increase in the price of fuel has affected us in ways unknown. The sun country airlines has never been effected to this extent, but this time, the fuel has hit it too. For a full 6 months, sun country will be 30 % of its pilots due to the huge mismanagement of the budget. The spokesperson of the company has been saying that the budget had been initially planned with the older fuel rate. However the sudden increase in price has caught them by surprise, resulting in cutting down on the airline capacity. The aim now is to manage staying air borne with the remnant aircrafts at the present price range of the fuel. The company has been considerate enough to include those pilots in the deal who were looking for a voluntary leave anyway. This was done in order to minimize labor loss.
The sun country airlines have been known for their friendly demeanor, their passenger-centered policies and their appeal to their clientele. This step has not been received warmly as such. The only good thing coming out of the move is the fact that the pilots are not being sacked but just being sent on a 4 months leave with partial pay too. There was also a suggestion to alter the pilots for each month. However that would have resulted in much more hassle and hence a clean option was chosen.
Until recently sun county airlines had been expanding, adding more Boeings to its fleet as the number of destinations had increased to 31 throughout the US. However this cut down will not be effecting on the number of destinations, just the frequency of the flights.
This was incidently the first company to go bankrupt post nine-eleven. Although it has entered into a number of ventures, it is a common viewpoint that the company had never been able to stand up the way it did before.
Although it did introduce a number of vacation packages as well as the popular Minnesota flavored flights, the loss was prominent in every monetary decision it took. This year sun country airlines were planning to take it slow and hence planned no merger and just the regular flights. However the change in fuel rate has been large enough to affect their budget as well as the scheduling for the year 2008.
In the recent past, sun country airlines had also tried teaming up with numerous rent a car dealers as well as hotel properties at popular holiday vacations, offering substantial discounts with their flights. This did help for a brief time, but the loss faced in 2001 was too great to be covered up so soon. The sun country airlines even went to the extent of offering free stay in selective deals, with free rental car deals for the first day, and special discounts for frequent fliers. This is one of the reasons why sun country airlines had been slowing down their mergers, business deals or other expansion ideas. The main idea now was to cover up the losses and start earning in null. However the fuel rate sabotaged the entire plan, as a result of which around 45 pilots are unemployed at the moment with no imminent jobs either. Since they are still on the payroll of sun country airlines, they cannot take up jobs with other companies even as locums. Until now, not many employees have had to face such situations, but the sun country airlines is not willing to release them of their bond and hence a job anywhere would mean their permanent termination from sun country. This deal is not acceptable to most but they continue to comply and wait, in despair, hoping for a better winter this year, for sun country airlines and for them.
