Sun Country has announced plans to retire one of its Boeing 737-800 aircraft in an effort to save money on parts amid an industry-wide supply chain crisis.
During a Q1 2025 earnings call on Friday, CEO Jude Bricker said the decision to retire one of its 737-800s is in response to “tightness” the carrier was experiencing in the components market.
Additionally, the ultra-low-cost airline has decided to delay flying its first Boeing 737-900 passenger aircraft until later this year. Bricker said this was due to a “temporary surplus” in the airline’s passenger fleet.
“Even with this deferral, we’ll experience some unit cost pressures associated with lower utilization of our passenger fleet until we’re able to catch up our staffing to our fleet, which should occur around the second quarter of 2026,” he said.
Despite having too many aircraft and a pinch for parts, Bricker said he expected Sun Country’s charter segment to perform well through the rest of 2025, and that the company “continues to deliver high levels of free cash yield.”
“Currently, we plan to continue to deliver with net debt levels expected to fall below zero at some point in 2028,” he said. “However, we have the liquidity and balance sheet headroom to take advantage of any opportunities, including share repurchases using the $25 million of repurchase authority recently granted by our board.”
Worsening Supply Chain Woes
Supply chain challenges have recently led some airlines and lessors to dismantle newer aircraft models for spare parts.
Ongoing reliability issues with Pratt & Whitney’s PW1500G engines have been a critical contributor to the state of the supply chain. Longer maintenance has led to multiple aircraft groundings and an increased demand for spare engines.
This paired with large backlogs in overall aircraft production has crippled the sector, causing airlines to extend use of existing aircraft.
Maintenance Technician Shortages
Other challenges in aviation’s maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) industry have also persisted since the pandemic years, primarily due to shortages of skilled labor.
While the industry has taken actions to address the issue, the near-term future looks like it’s going to be difficult. A workforce gap is projected to cause a 20% shortfall on maintenance techs in 2028, according to a 2024 Pipeline Report by the Aviation Technician Education Council.
Although currently bleak, some industry insiders like the Aviation Maintenance Institute (AIM) have suggested this crisis could be a catalyst for increased wages and greater collaboration between industry stakeholders.
AIM President Jason Pfaff told AirlineGeeks in an interview earlier this year that the situation would get worse before it got better.
“If it’s a nine inning game, I’d say we’re probably in the third inning,” Pfaff said in the February interview. “It will get more challenging. But again, from our perspective, at least from some of the conversations we’re having, this could also be a catalyst for a lot of really exciting change in our industry as well.”
