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Over the weekend of 14-15 April, Sun Country Airline earned themselves the attention of two Minnesota Senators and the DOT when they opted to strand in Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas their passengers. The airline’s play book didn’t have a scenario where a weather related system shut down at the end of the “flight season” to a given destination would leave their passengers high and dry. This is exactly what happened to 250 passengers (two flights - one in Mazatlan and the other in Cabo) waiting to fly back to Minneapolis. The winter storm caused flight cancellations.
The passengers who were ditched in Mexico learned, first hand, the limitation of the budget airline industry.
You get what you paid for with Sun Country?
No inter-airline relationships. What that means is Sun Country couldn’t have their customer service reps call other airlines and re-book the departure once the weather delay had been lifted in Minneapolis.
Limited customer service staff. The call center was so overwhelmed by stranded passengers both in Mexico and other locales, that they were receiving busy signals for Saturday and Sunday.
Wholesale sales are not always the passenger’s friend when “events” percolate to the surface as this Sun Country episode demonstrates. According to the CEO of Sun Country, Jude Bricker explained in his email to his employees, the airline chose to send emails to inform passengers that their flight was canceled and they were on their own to find their way home. That email went to Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline, travel agents, and some passengers on a Saturday morning. Needless to say, the word did not reach most of the stranded passengers. (An excellent argument for making sure that your airline has a number to contact you directly)
Congress and DOT
Taking up the mantle for the consumer Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) dropped the hammer on the airline, reaching out to the Department of Transportation to make sure that airline have in place contingency plans which do not include — abandoning passengers (who happen to be her constituents).
I led the charge pressing @USDOT to make sure that our airline cancellation policies prevent this from happening again. But Sun Country stranded its customers, and they have to make things right. pic.twitter.com/f67xlx2Lum
— Tina Smith (@SenTinaSmith) April 17, 2018
Sun Country take-two
This scenario wasn’t in their playbook. Their contract personnel in Mexico apparently were finished on 16 April, the end of the season. Why they opted not to dead-head two flights, one to Cabo San Lucas (SJD) and the other to Mazatlan (MZT) of their own or chartered from another airline is unknown. Their CEO in a rather lengthy email to his employees (congratulating them on a job well done, though room for improvement) he acknowledges that the decisions made for the Mexico passengers weren’t the best. Read the Sun Country email to employees.
If you were affected by Sun Country’s Mexico abandonment, the CEO advises that you will be “refunded for your flight” and any other reasonable costs which were incurred. Weather cancellations happen, the airline remains on the hook to get you to your destination, they are not (normally) responsible for providing you lodging and meals you may have to incur due to the weather event.
