Twin Cities-based Sun Country airlines is adding 18 new non-stop routes to its network, six of them out of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Those six offer service directly to Phoenix, Florida, and the Caribbean island of Caicos.
Sun Country announced the additions in an email on Tuesday morning.
“With more and more people excited to resume traveling, we’re thrilled to be able to offer them the opportunity to visit these incredible vacation destinations this winter,” wrote Sun Country Airlines Chief Revenue Officer Grant Whitney.
Paul Vaaler, business and law professor at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, believes the moves are based on the pent-up demand to travel, particularly in large metro areas where COVID-19 vaccination rates are increasing.
"They're trying to benefit and exploit that for their own commercial advantage," Vaaler said. "Sun Country has been holding back as well. When the pandemic hit, Sun Country scaled-back a number of their routes and number of flights. This is really scaling-back-up."
With the expansion, Sun Country now offers 93 routes to 63 airports in the northern hemisphere. Relaxed COVID protocols at international destinations could soon open the travel floodgates even more.
"Some believe that by early June, many of the summer international destinations for Americans will loosen their restrictions on visits from the United States and Canada," he said. "Once those changes come on the European side, it's going to be very difficult to restrain those companies from trying to accommodate that pent-up demand for vacation and other types of discretionary business travel."
Vaaler says the demand will likely play a factor into the price one might pay when booking a flight.
"Now that the market is coming back, I expect the companies will try to profit maximize and we will probably see them try to get the most out of every seat," Vaaler added. "Regional players, like Sun Country, will continue to do what they've done so well, which is to undercut and provide more economic service to some of the select destinations. I think we will see some high prices for business travel, but for families and leisure's, expect the regional players to be there if bigger airlines get too greedy."
Sun Country officials say the expansion opens-up wintertime vacation trips to travelers in the upper Midwest.