Sun Country's N809SY at Shannon
Visits by domestic US carriers to this side of the pond are few and far between so Sun Country's visit with B737-8Q8 N809SY to Shannon ranks as one of the more interesting movements in recent weeks. The aircraft, msn 30683 is a 2005 build frame and arrived from Minneapolis last night as flight SCX 900, returning to Portsmouth, NH this lunchtime using the same flight number. Sun Country are a contractor to the US military so today's flight may well have been a proving flight for non domestic flights. Pictured above the irony of "Sun Country" won't have been lost on the submerged residents of Co. Clare who have been under water for the past 5 days.
Sun Country traces its roots back to 1982 when a group of former Braniff employees established an airline using a former Braniff B727 based in Minneapolis. After a period of slow if not spectacular growth in the 1980's the airline grew fom B727 size aircraft up to Dc10 size but eventually competition from local heavyweight Northwest and the fallout form 9-11 caused Sun Country to shut up shop in December 2001. Through new investment, Sun Country re-emerged in the early 00's to be acquired by the Petters Group Worldwide in 2006.
In 2008, Tom Petters the owner of Petters Group resigned after the FBI uncovered a massive financial fraud at the Petters Group. In October 2008, Sun Country filed for Chapter 11 protection to distance itself from the other companies in the group. On Friday last, Tom Petters took to the stand at a Federal Court in Minnesota to deny that his companies were involved in a Ponzi case which resulted in the defrauding of investors of $3.65bn.