Allegiant to amass Sun Country for $1.5 billion: Travel Weekly

Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air has reached an settlement to buy Sun Country Airlines for $1.5 billion.

The merger, if accredited by federal antitrust regulators, would carry collectively the Minneapolis-centric community of Sun Country with Allegiant’s broader leisure community, combining Allegiant’s 551 routes with Sun Country’s 105. 

It would additionally flip Allegiant into a world service with the addition of Sun Country’s 18 routes to locations in Canada, Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean. 

In addition, Allegiant would purchase Sun Country’s sizeable constitution and cargo operations. Sun Country spent 2025 specializing in rising its cargo community, which features a multiyear contract with Amazon Prime Air. 

“We have long admired Sun Country for their well-run, flexible and diversified business model that optimizes for year-round utilization and strong margins,” Allegiant CEO Greg Anderson mentioned. “Together, our complementary networks will expand our reach to more vacation destinations including international locations. With our combined strengths — including operational excellence, consistent profitability, strong balance sheets and fleet ownership, we will create an even more resilient and agile airline that delivers greater value to travelers, partners, team members, shareholders and the communities we serve.”

Anderson could be CEO of the mixed firm. Sun Country CEO Jude Bricker would be part of the Allegiant board of administrators together with two different Sun Country members, increasing the Allegiant board to 11 members. The carriers are hoping to shut the deal within the second half of this yr, although they might function individually till attaining a single working certificates from the FAA.

Allegiant expects the merger to carry annual synergies of $140 million inside three years following the combination, largely pushed by its means to supply extra flying choices. Cost financial savings would even be achieved resulting from elevated scale. 

The $1.5 billion buy worth quantities to $18.89 per Sun Country share, 19.8% above the airline’s Jan. 9 closing worth. Sun Country shares jumped upon information of the closure and had been up greater than 11% in mid-morning buying and selling. 

In the merger announcement, the airways confused similarities of their enterprise fashions, together with their leisure focus and versatile working mannequin, which includes aggressive scaling of capability relying on seasonality and days of the week. 

They additionally mentioned the merger would carry collectively complementary route networks. While each carriers emphasize trip locations, Allegiant has a specific deal with small and midsize cities, and on secondary airports in bigger markets. Sun Country’s route map is dominated by Minneapolis, with a big portion of Minneapolis flights connecting to warm-weather locales. 

Allegiant mentioned it might proceed to have a big presence in Minneapolis, utilizing it as an anchor metropolis. 

Allegiant has a fleet of 127 plane, together with 16 Boeing 737s and 111 Airbus A320 collection planes, based on Planespotters.web. Sun Country has a fleet of 68 Boeing 737s.