MINNEAPOLIS — Sun Country Airlines is taking the next step in a two-year expansion this week, as they show off a new headquarters near MSP.
But there have been growing pains along the way. From customers stranded in Mexico following a storm in 2018, to lingering issues like lost bags, long check-in lines and long wait times on customer service calls.
KARE11 Reporter Kent Erdahl sat down with SunCountry CEO Jude Bricker to talk about what’s been going on and what the airline is doing to address issues.
Kent Erdahl: "You came in at a time, 2 years ago of a big change, for this airline."
Jude Bricker: "Yeah. Two years ago, were some of the best years of the airline's history, profitability-wise, and we were a break-even carrier, so we needed to make changes, and those changes were inevitable. A lot of those changes were hard decisions that we had to make."
The biggest change was growth. For the first time, the airline decided to buy planes. Bricker says the investment allowed them to add both destinations and seats.
Bricker: "We grew 35% this year and we changed the business dramatically. We have fares today that are about $30 lower than they were two years ago when I got here, and that's allowed us to carry about 60% more passengers."
But in the last year, the SunCountry workforce has grown by just 10% and customer complaints have mounted. Several sites show customer ratings that hover around two out of five stars.
Erdahl: "When you see a two star rating, what does that tell you? How do you respond to that?"
Bricker: "I think we need to get better. No doubt about it."
Erdahl: "What would you give your airline right now?"
Bricker: "I think we're a four (out of five). I think that there's clearly some areas that we need to address, but we deliver a good product with good people and it's a reliable operation."
Bricker says his rating reflects steps they've already begun to take in response to the complaints.
He says they added an additional call center in Las Vegas and now have 40-50 more employees that have helped cut wait times to under a minute since August.
The airline acknowledged problems with a ground-handling vendor in 2018, and has now switched to another company.
Frequent complaints about long check-in lines, present a different kind of challenge. He says technology upgrades should be providing relief soon.
Bricker: "We can't add ticket counter space, there's none left. The main thing we need to be able to do is offer a path for people to check-in and go through security without talking to anybody, to get people off the ticket counter."
Erdahl: "Where do you go from here to win back the trust of some of those customers that feel like they have been burned in the last couple of years?"
Bricker: "I think the first thing is the employees feel like they are supported out in the operation, to do things that benefit our customers in the long run, and the next phase is to roll out technology where customers can further manage their itineraries in the event of a disruption."
That technology is still another six to nine months out, Bricker says.
According to the latest report from OAG, a leading provider of air travel data, less than 70 percent of SunCountry flights in early 2019.
Erdahl: "What would you say about that on-time performance and where things are?"
Bricker: "We're continuing to get better. Last month we had 80 percent on-time. This month we're over 80 percent. On-time is something we need to get better at and we're continuing to try to do that."
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