Sun Country Launches Corporate Travel Agency

Minneapolis-based Sun Country Airlines has launched a full-service travel agency aimed at business travelers. The agency, called Sun Country Business Concierge, will book all carriers, but it will offer special fares on its parent airline.

Despite the new agency’s formidable local competition – it shares its home town with both Carlson Wagonlit Travel and Travel Leaders – Sun Country Business Concierge may attract unaligned smaller businesses because of its relatively low fees. The agency will charge $30 per trip, or $50 for a trip with unlimited changes. It will also provide dedicated agents to companies that adopt Business Concierge as their agency.

Sun Country is known primarily as a leisure airline. As its name implies, it serves sun destinations in Mexico and the Caribbean.

However, it also serves Dallas, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Diego year-round and offers seasonal service to Boston, New York, Washington, San Francisco, Seattle, Anchorage and London. The airline also has developed relationships with hotel companies through its vacation package business.

Sun Country gets high marks for service: It has placed five years in a row in the top 10 list of domestic airlines in Travel+Leisure’s World’s Best Awards, and it has been ranked by Condé Nast Traveler as one of the best airlines for three years.

But with a name like Sun Country, it may be battling its own image as a “vacation airline” as it tries to expand into the corporate market.

Agent Concerns
Still, some corporate travelers have begun using Sun Country during the economic downturn, according to Colleen Hagg, senior vice president, corporate and leisure travel, at Advantage Travel Leaders in Savage, Minn.

While Sun Country is setting itself up as a competitor, Hagg said, perhaps a bigger concern to local agents is that “we drive business to them, and now they have access to that data.”

While it’s too early to assess how Sun Country will behave toward its agencies/competitors, Hagg said, concerns of local agents include the carrier’s ability to use that data to market directly to businesses. In addition, Sun Country Business Concierge “probably has the ability to waive restrictions and do other things we can’t do,” she said.

Taking the Direct Approach
Airline-owned agencies are far more common in Europe and other parts of the world than in North America.

U.S. airlines have taken a different approach, seeking to attract business travelers to their websites. While they have gained some traction with unmanaged business travelers, they have had less success among large corporations, a market that is owned by travel management companies.

That history may have inspired Sun Country to offer its self-described “executive service with the personal touch that only your hometown travel company can provide.” Companies that adopt Business Concierge as their agency will have dedicated agents.

Sun Country Airlines just emerged from a two-year bankruptcy that had more to do with distancing itself from its majority shareholder, Tom Petters, than with its own operation. Petters’ other businesses had been taken over by a court-appointed receiver; the airline’s bankruptcy filing exempted it from that action.