Sun Country's $1.5B Merger Ends a 41-Year Minnesota Legacy
Minnesota's hometown airline is merging with Las Vegas-based Allegiant. For years, a trio of former and current Sun Country staffers has worked to preserve the brand.
In January, one of Sun Country's original flight attendants heard something that hit hard.
"It was horrible. It was horrible," said Maggie Hill, one of Sun Country's original flight attendants.
In a $1.5 billion deal, it was announced that Allegiant would take over the Minnesota-based carrier, which had been in operation since 1982, started by a group of crew members from the former Braniff International Airways.
"To know that our brand is going to disappear is devastating. It really was. I just don't know how to put it into words," said Hill.
Hill retired in 2022 after 39 years of working in the skies since the airline's first flight.
Hill and two others - Jen Gasperini, who's a current flight attendant of nine years, and Karyn Fernandes, who was previously in corporate for 22 years - came together with an idea around the pandemic.
"We feel like we are giving a gift to anyone who's ever flown Sun Country, worked for Sun Country," said Gasperini.
That idea is now a book discussing their beloved airline's success story. Their book, "Minnesota's Phoenix," is available at all major retailers.
"The employees of Sun Country held the airline together," Fernandes said. "Sun Country is the people who work there and that's not going to go away."
The three say much of who Sun Country is can be attributed to one of its founding pilots, Jim Olsen.
"Jim would always say, 'That's one for the book,'" said Fernandes.
Olsen passed away earlier this year. WCCO spoke with his family when he was inducted into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame just weeks ago.
"He was a great character. He loved his airline," said Mark Olsen, the son of Jim Olsen. "They did whatever they could to keep the costs down and pass that onto the customers."
The merger is expected to close in the second half of this year.
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