Sun Country Adding Winter Flights at Mitchell Airport

Sun Country Airlines jet. Photo by Railfan99, (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Low-cost carrier Sun Country Airlines is planning to add new flights out of Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport.

The airline announced plans Tuesday to add flights to four domestic and international destinations beginning in mid-December this year and running through April 2024. The airline only began offering flights out of Milwaukee in 2021.

“We appreciate how well customers in Wisconsin have supported our new and expanded services,” said Grant Whitney, Chief Revenue Office and Vice President, in a statement. “With this growth in Milwaukee, Sun Country looks forward to offering service to popular destinations where leisure travelers want to go, when they want to go.”

The new flights will serve popular warm-weather travel destinations next winter. The carrier is planning to offer “near-daily nonstop service” to Fort Myers, and multiple flights a week to both Orlando and Phoenix. Additionally, nonstop service to Cancun, Mexico will be expanded with four flights a week, and throughout March it will offer daily flights in anticipation of the spring break travel demand.

“Mexico, Florida, and Arizona are the most popular winter destinations for Milwaukee-based travelers, and we’re pleased Sun Country is providing additional low-fare options to these family-friendly warm weather destinations,” Airport Director Brian Dranzik said. “It’s great to see that Sun Country is increasing its Cancun service to daily, which will give more travelers the opportunity to hit the beach with just one easy flight from MKE.”

This summer, through Labor Day, the ultra-budget airline is offering $49 weekend flights between Milwaukee and Minneapolis. It is also running weekend flights between Milwaukee and Las Vegas.

After pandemic travel restrictions began to loosen up in 2021, Sun Country was one of a handful of low-cost airlines, including Spirit and Jet Blue, that began providing service out of Milwaukee Mitchell. The latest available passenger data shows that Sun Country flew 3,346 passengers to or from Milwaukee Mitchell in March, accounting for 0.67% of all passengers that passed through the airport that month.

The airport has been trying to market itself to local travelers in recent years, explaining that if more nearby residents use Milwaukee Mitchell the airlines will add more service. The passenger traffic through the airport has been slowly returning the past two years after dropping steeply in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.