Sun Country Airlines recently struck a deal to fly aircraft for Amazon’s Prime Air.
The passenger airline which is based at Minneapolis St Paul airport, usually flies leisure and low-cost flights from this main hub, as well as bases in Dallas Ft Worth, Las Vegas McCarran, and Portland, OR.
It has a fleet of Boeing 737-800s, and recently started introducing a new livery following a competition among staff members.
However, now Sun Country has reached an agreement to fly Boeing 737-800 converted freighters on behalf of Prime Air, wearing full livery.
This happened after Amazon bought a minority stake in Sun Country in December 2019, indicating its intentions to make use of the carrier in its growing cargo network.
The deal is initially for Sun Country to fly ten aircraft for Prime Air, starting in May 2020.
In fact, the first flights have recently started with three aircraft already in the fleet.
This deal apparently happened when Sun Country tried to offload one of its Boeing 737-800s to Amazon more than a year ago. Amazon declined, but came back with a request for the airline to operate aircraft on its behalf.
Amazon gains the benefit of using Sun Country’s operating certificate, its staff and their experience in flying 737s. It also gains a wider route network for its growing Prime Air brand.
Sun Country gains an extra revenue stream which couldn’t have come at a better time, given there are very few passengers flying at the moment and airlines are struggling to make money. Yet cargo flying is on the rise.
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Sun Country’s Prime Air Fleet
All aircraft are Boeing Converted Freighters – airframes that have previously been passenger aircraft and subsequently converted into cargo configuration.
- N542RL, Boeing 737-83N(BCF) – Previously VT-JGK with Jet Airways
- N543RL, Boeing 737-84P(BCF) – Previously B-2647 with Lucky Air
- N545RL, Boeing 737-84P(BCF) – Previously B-2158 with Urumqi Airlines
- N547RL, Boeing 737-83N(BCF) – Previously TC-IZD with Pegasus Airlines
Six additional aircraft will also be added.
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