Sun Country cuts fleet capacity as aircraft spares shortages continue to bite  

Sun Country Airlines, the Minneapolis-based US leisure carrier, has revealed that it is being forced to cut its operational fleet size over the coming months as the company faces ongoing challenges over sourcing spare parts for its exclusively Boeing fleet of 737 passenger jets. The carrier says it will retire one Boeing 737-800 earlier than planned, while a new Boeing 737-900 acquired by the airline will not enter service until the end of 2025, meaning the aircraft will remain on the ground in the meantime.  

Amid an industry-wide supply chain crisis that has been affecting the airline industry since the COVID-19 pandemic, Sun Country is reducing its fleet size to cut maintenance costs and spending on spare parts, as the costs of these have been rising as supply has slowed, but demand has soared over recent years.

As reported by the website Airlinegeeks.com, during a first-quarter 2025 earnings call held on May 3, 2025, the airline’s CEO, Jude Bricker, said the decision to retire one of its 737-800s came in response to “tightness” the carrier was experiencing in the components market. According to ch-aviation, the airline currently operates a fleet of 44 passenger-carrying  Boeing 737-800s with an average age of 16.6 years alongside 15 Boeing 737-800 converted freighters.

Ryan Fletcher / ShutterstockAdditionally, in late 2024, the airline acquired a single Boeing 737-900ER in the form of aircraft N901SY from Oman Air. However, this aircraft has been in storage since the start of 2025 and its return to the skies seems set to be delayed even further for similar reasons. Bricker said this delay was due to a “temporary surplus” in the airline’s passenger-carrying aircraft fleet.

“Even with this deferral, we’ll experience some unit cost pressures associated with lower utilization of our passenger fleet until we’re able to catch up our staffing to our fleet, which should occur around the second quarter of 2026,” he said during the call.

While not addressing the ongoing economic downturn in the US economy, with many analysts predicting a recession later in 2025, the airline has not attributed the forced reduction in fleet size to a fall in overall demand for its services. Despite what might be happening elsewhere in the US airline industry (with several other major carriers stating that demand has fallen in the first quarter of 2025), Bricker said he expected Sun Country’s charter segment to perform well throughout the rest of 2025, and that the company “continues to deliver high levels of free cash yield.”

Borka Kiss / Shutterstock“Currently, we plan to continue to deliver with net debt levels expected to fall below zero at some point in 2028,” he said. “However, we have the liquidity and balance sheet headroom to take advantage of any opportunities, including share repurchases using the $25 million of repurchase authority recently granted by our board.”

Sun Country currently operates 296 routes serving 144 destinations across six countries with its fleet of 60 aircraft. Of the 15 Boeing 737 converted freighter aircraft operated by the airline (on behalf of Amazon’s Prime Air), four are currently listed as either stored or undergoing maintenance.

Robin Guess / ShutterstockMaintenance challenges     

The maintenance challenges facing airlines globally are certainly not just limited to aircraft spare parts. Engines in particular have caused significant issues for many airlines, particularly those that operate Airbus A320neo family aircraft equipped with Pratt & Whitney GTF powerplants. Many of these aircraft remained grounded while waiting for new parts and increased maintenance inspections as a result of issues found with this type of engine.

Additionally, the industry is also facing a perfect storm in the shape of a shortage of licensed aircraft engineers qualified to work on passenger aircraft. Many retired early during the pandemic and were not replaced, while the time it takes to train up new maintenance staff means that any shortage takes time to resolve.

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