Minneapolis-based budget airline Sun Country has pulled out of 25 destinations this year, and the fallout from its merger with Allegiant Air is largely to blame. After the deal closed in May, the carrier lost more pilots than expected — many left for Delta — and it simply couldn't staff all the flights it had promised. So routes got cut, mostly from its Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) hub, with last flights typically running in August or September.
The domestic list reads like a map of everywhere Americans like to escape to. From MSP, Sun Country has dropped Portland, Maine; Buffalo; Hartford; Providence; Pittsburgh; Syracuse; Burlington; Asheville; Richmond; Wilmington; Grand Rapids; Traverse City; Rapid City; Anchorage; Bozeman; Kalispell; Spokane; Boise; Missoula; San Antonio; Tulsa; and Austin. That's a lot of small-city service gone — bad news for travellers in places like Missoula or Traverse City who relied on those cheap nonstops to MSP and connections beyond.
The only cut outside Minneapolis was the Fort Myers–Appleton route, which ended back in April. It was the single route that overlapped between Sun Country and Allegiant's combined networks of more than 650 routes, so it got consolidated under Allegiant, which still flies it twice weekly.
Bigger news for cross-border travellers: Sun Country has exited Canada entirely. Its last Vancouver flight operated in August, Toronto in September — just a few years after the airline first entered the Canadian market in 2022 and expanded to Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. The routes weren't empty; load factors ranged from 60% to 78% on average, occasionally topping 90%. But full planes with cheap fares don't always mean profit, and Sun Country was competing head-to-head with Delta and Air Canada, both running multiple daily MSP flights to Toronto and Vancouver.
The belt-tightening shows up in the winter schedule too. Cirium data shows Sun Country's flights and seats down about 11.5% year over year, with roughly 10,515 flights planned between November and March — nearly 370 fewer than last winter. MSP remains the busiest hub at around 185 weekly departures, with Orlando and Fort Myers the top domestic draws. The bright spot for sun-seekers: Cancún is the airline's biggest international market, starting at seven weekly departures from MSP in November and ramping up to as many as five flights a day as peak season arrives.
If you had a Sun Country booking to any of the dropped cities, check your itinerary and rebook — and if you're in one of those smaller markets, Allegiant or Delta may be your realistic alternatives. For everyone else, the airline's sun routes to Florida and Mexico are untouched and, in Cancún's case, actually growing. Source: Simple Flying.
