Sun Country Airlines has agreed to operate up to eight more freighter aircraft for e-commerce giant Amazon beginning in early 2025.
The Minneapolis, Minnesota-based carrier, which also has a passenger scheduled service and charter operation, said in a 20 June filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it reached the contract amendment with Amazon earlier this week.
The deal will bring the number of aircraft for which Sun Country provides crew, maintenance and insurance services to 20 from its previous 12. The aircraft are all Boeing 737-800BCF models.
In addition, the parties agreed to extend their collaboration, launched in 2019, to the end of October 2030, and to “add two additional two-year renewal terms exercisable by Amazon and… a three-year renewal term subject to mutual written agreement”. That could bring the agreement into 2037.
“Amazon is an extremely important customer to Sun Country and strong execution on our current cargo services positioned us well to grow our business,” says chief executive Jude Bricker. “We look forward to continuing to provide services to Amazon into the 2030s.”
Finally, the new deal calls for an unspecified expansion of services provided by Sun Country to Amazon.
Sun Country ended the first quarter of 2024 with 44 passenger aircraft and 12 cargo-configured jets in addition to seven aircraft currently on lease to other airlines.
In May, the company said its cargo revenue from its Amazon agreement increased about 2.5% in the first quarter, year-on-year, to $24 million.
The two companies initially announced Sun Country would deliver Amazon freight in Amazon-branded aircraft in December 2019, initially entering a six-year deal. At the time, the carrier said it was a “first-of-its-kind for a scheduled service passenger airline”.
Hawaiian Airlines now operates two Airbus A330s for Amazon, and plans for as many as seven freighters of an initial batch of 10 aircraft to be flying for the company before the end of this year.
