Sun Country Plans Inflight Wi-Fi, Just Not Yet

Sun Country’s next cabin refresh is coming, and inflight Internet is likely to be part of the plan. CEO Jude Bricker floated that idea in a conversation at the APEX Global Expo last week in Long Beach, CA.

Bricker described a need to “maintain a quality product in comparison to the other product offerings in the US” in justifying the likely move. That need is offset, however, by what he calls a “very price sensitive customer,” so closing the business case is a challenge.

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Balancing pricing concerns and product expectations today led Sun Country to install AirFi‘s streaming entertainment solution across its fleet. Bricker says it is well-received by customers. But a failure to keep up with market trends (“We’re going to see increased availability of fast, free internet connectivity on airplanes in the US…. It seems like the whole industry is going that direction”) and passenger expectations will “inevitably drive a fare discount.” To that end he expects to see Wi-Fi flying on board relatively soon,

Fortunately, Bricker also recognizes an increasing number of options from service providers, joined by improving reliability of the on-board IFC hardware, delivering lower service costs:

LEO networks are really aggressively competing with one another. It’s driving down the cost of access. And you know, our customer is a very price sensitive customer, so if we offered in flight connectivity for free, we wouldn’t be able to raise the fare very much, maybe not at all…

[So,] Probably in a few years, we’ll have an internet connectivity solution. I don’t know what it’s going to look like, and I don’t know you know the fee structure. We’re just now exploring it, but I’m really encouraged to be here and seeing all the all the providers being really aggressive on price.

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The timeline for a connectivity installation will likely be tied to the carrier’s anticipated cabin refresh program. The last interior update came in 2017-18 when Bricker joined the airline, and it is due for another in the next couple years. Performing the work concurrently appears to be the goal:

Contemporaneous with that cabin re-envisioning is probably going to be a careful study of what we want to offer on in flight connectivity. And I think probably it’s going to result in around 2027-28 we’re going to have an internet connectivity on our aircraft as well.

That timing opens up lots of options, even if Sun Country limits itself only to LEO networks; that’s not a sure thing, but it was all Bricker mentioned, and several times. Both Kuiper and Telesat Lightspeed aim to be in service by that time. And the industry will have a lot more experience with Starlink and Eutelsat’s OneWeb constellations under load and in higher density operations to see how they fare.

And there’s still a chance the planes stay dark. Bricker was clear that Sun Country “haven’t picked anybody, and we haven’t even decided what we’re going to do.” But the company is “thinking about it a lot,” and a decision should be announced within the next couple years.

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Avoiding a Premium Cabin

Given the link between the internet service and a cabin refresh, Bricker also shared some details about expectations for what the latter will include. While the rest of the market races to capture an increased premium demand, including first class seating JetBlue and Frontier are doing it), Sun Country will not make that move.

Bricker expressed affection for Spirit’s Big Front Seat (RIP). But he’s simply not willing to give up the space in the cabin.

The issue Bricker explains, is “we operate a really high load factor because our response to weak periods is to cut those flights. Therefore gauge [and, really, capacity] is really important. Cutting seats off our airplane is really expensive, and thus far, the math doesn’t work for taking seats off the airplane to provide a better product.”

Bricker argues Sun Country operates a larger extra legroom cabin (30 of 186 seats on board, or 42 if you include the exit rows) than its peers*. And that’s probably the only premium the carrier will fly for the foreseeable future. “We’ll continue to study [2-2 first class seating options], but my sense is we’re probably going to fall on a cabin that’s basically the cabin that we have.”

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*It was not clear which peers Bricker considered, but Allegiant Extra and Breeze have comparable or larger legroom cabins on board. Southwest’s new layout has 46/175 with extra legroom, also more than Sun Country’s layout. Sun Country’s is not small, but it is definitely not the largest.

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• Sun Country Plans Inflight Wi-Fi, Just Not Yet