Potential bidder circling Sun Country Airlines

[RedDogC130]

http://www.startribune.com/business...yP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUac8HEaDiaMDCinchO7DU

By LIZ FEDOR, Star Tribune
Last update: December 3, 2009 - 8:13 PM

A potential buyer has emerged for Sun Country Airlines, but the carrier's bankruptcy attorney said Thursday that a specific bid hasn't been made.
for Sun Country Airlines, but the carrier's bankruptcy attorney said Thursday that a specific bid hasn't been made.


In a court filing, the airline said Sun Country recently received "a letter of interest from a qualified prospective buyer indicating a price which may be of interest."
Michael Meyer, Sun Country's bankruptcy counsel, declined to name the interested party on Thursday. But he said he anticipates it will enter a period of due diligence and fully evaluate the company before it would make a firm offer.
The Mendota Heights-based airline filed for bankruptcy in October 2008 just days after its majority stockholder, Tom Petters, was arrested on fraud-related charges.
Petters was convicted on Wednesday of 20 counts of mail and wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit those crimes. Petters hasn't been involved in the management of the low-fare airline for more than a year, but Petters Aviation still owns all of the voting shares in Sun Country.
Meyer said: "Are we going to sell the company and distribute the money or take a different approach?"
Sun Country informed the bankruptcy court in late November that it had negotiated a proposed plan of reorganization with the creditors committee and others, in which its major creditors would become shareholders.
But the airline said in its court filing that it would be "premature" to take that path because a strong bid could be made by the prospective buyer.
On Wednesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel signed an order granting Sun Country's request to take more time before presenting a business reorganization plan to the court. Sun Country's exclusive right to file its plan has been extended through Feb. 5.

THOUGHTS?

 

[SpauldingSmails]

I heard rumors once upon a time about Air Tran being interested in them.

Perhaps a travel club/vacation charter operator?

 

[TV9Driver]

i know the uppity-ups here at AirTran have been talking about getting 800's soon. I think we were all thinking we would order them from Boeing

 

[Lear70]

Wouldn't greatly surprise me.

AirTran holdings buys Sun Country.

AirTran holdings operates Sun Country separate from the AirTran certificate.

AirTran holdings forms a "Code share" with Sun Country to operate their aircraft on routes sold by AirTran sales (website and reservations dept), with an end-run attempt a la Midwest but with bigger aircraft.

At the same time, AirTran is starting new sub-service with SkyWest to include 70 seaters under "code-share" as well, just like the 50-seaters they are putting into service tomorrow.

Dual attack on the AirTran pilots.

Could be wrong... it's happened before. Don't want to see the Sun Country employees out of work but I hope I'm wrong about this one and it's not AirTran.

 

[Ty Webb]

RM, wouldn't the Co have to merge the certificates (and the lists) if they owned both companies?

 

[waveflyer]

Why would they? More than a few companies hold many certificates and airlines

 

[Kharma Police]

Why would they? More than a few companies hold many certificates and airlines

Just like Texas Air Corporation owned Eastern and Continental.

 

[Jetjockey]

Just like Texas Air Corporation owned Eastern and Continental.

We all know how that turned out for Eastern.

 

[Lear70]

RM, wouldn't the Co have to merge the certificates (and the lists) if they owned both companies?

We'd have to file for "single carrier status" with the NMB.

Almost 2 years ago Pinnacle airlines purchased Colgan. They combined management staff in Memphis, took over operational control, but operated the two companies independently of each other.

Pinnacle airlines pilots (ALPA) filed single-carrier with the NMB and won the initial case. However, it was overturned on appeal and they were ruled two separate entities. I *believe* the issue was that Colgan does flying for CAL and has their flights booked by CAL's res system and Pinnacle does flying for Northwest/Delta and has their flights booked by (now) Delta's reservations, with no fleet commonalities, no common hubs, and little (if any) route overlap. Someone correct me if I'm wrong about the appeal overturn basis, please...? I don't know if PCL ALPA has filed an appeal on that ruling or not.

Point being, existing case law is "iffy". We might get single carrier status, we might not. Especially if Sun Country's operating offices are kept in place (with Big Bob calling the shots from the holding company) and they still run their flights they have now and only put SOME of their aircraft to work for us and keep their colors on them. If they did that, I don't know if we'd get single carrier status... depends on the judge, probably.

All of that is based on a big assumption that the bidder IS AAI. Might be Southwest. Who knows... Just makes sense considering the other outsourcing our management is doing and the expansion they want to do in MKE combined with the Shareholder's meeting the other day which quoted our management saying "The pilot contract allows for us to outsource flying as needed". The only thing they can do with that is code-share with an aircraft that large as far as I'm aware...

The smartest thing they could do right now is put some large aircraft at their immediate availability combined with an RJ fleet ready to go when we go on strike. You know how they operate: they do what they want and let us fight it in court for a year or more. It took almost 8 months for Pinnacle ALPA to get their initial "win", then the company refused to implement the award because they filed an appeal. They kept doing what they wanted.

If management does that here, and we get released in the next 6 months with a good strike vote, the company will have access to all the aircraft Sun Country runs as well as a bunch of non-union RJ's with access to 70- and 90- seaters probably within a few days of request, and they'll have a way to replace a huge chunk of our existing routes as pressure against a strike.

It makes perfect sense,,, Question is, will they do it and will Southwest or someone else move in with a counter-offer to keep those aircraft out of our hands?

The only other question is, if the holding company DID acquire Sun Country, would they honor our definition of "struck work" or would they fly the routes anyway?

Time will tell... the faster we get to strike, the fewer options the company will have time to put in place. The longer it takes, the better they can prepare contingency plans.

 

[livintheredream]

Also every suncountry or skywest pilot who was to fly the struck at Tranny will be labeled a scab and never get hired anywhere else again. Skywest has avoided this so far but they could become a scab outfit very shortly with only a few AC. Tranny needs a strike vote now and ASAP cooling off.