Sun Country Airlines makes $10.7m profit despite Q3 headwinds

Sun Country Airlines posted a $10.7m profit in Q3 2022 despite higher operating costs and ongoing struggles to hire enough flight crews. The Minneapolis, Minnesota-based airline brought in an operating revenue of $221.7m, a 28% increase compared with $173.7mi in the three months ending 30 September last year. “Demand continues to be robust,” Jude Bricker, Sun Country’s CE, said during the airline’s Q3 earnings call on 1 November. “There’s no sign of a slowdown in the leisure space.” However, like many of its industry peers, the ultra-low cost carrier has been hobbled by a lack of qualified and current pilots – captains, specifically. “Last quarter, we were constrained primarily by first officers,” Bricker says. “This quarter, captain availability has become the restraining input.” Sun Country has hired 91 pilots in 2022 and has made “significant progress in expanding our pilot training pipeline”, Bricker says. Operating expenses were 35% higher year-on-year, the company says. The cost of jet fuel was 75% higher than in the third quarter 2021, as the airline paid an average of $3.93 per gallon. Additionally, the airline experienced an increase in non-fuel costs “largely driven by the fact that our aircraft utilisation remains lower than target and the impact of our new pilot agreement, which we signed at the end of last year”, Bricker says. Sun Country’s scheduled service revenue rose just over 27% to $102m from $80.2m last year, and its charter service produced revenue of $42.9m, a year-on-year increase of 27%. <br/>