Sun Country Airlines is looking to move its headquarters from Eagan to its Twin Cities hangar and is working with airport officials to make it happen.
On Monday, the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which governs Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, set a special planning meeting for Dec. 17 to discuss the idea with airline representatives. Sun Country leases the hangar space, off Cargo Road on the airfield's western edge, from the airport.
Sun Country and MSP officials reached a tentative agreement late last week that would allow the airline to consolidate all of its office workers at the hangar, known as Building C. The commission hopes to have a final agreement by the end of the month, airport spokesman Patrick Hogan said.
The project would require reconfiguring the hangar building, turning some cavernous space now used to shelter airplanes into space suitable for office work.
Of Sun Country's 1,500-person workforce, about 500 are corporate positions. Some of those corporate jobs are shift workers with a work-from-home option, Wenker said, so the company is still figuring out how many people the space could feasibly accommodate.
The commission expects a rough outline of concept plans to be available ahead of the special planning meeting. "This is a Sun Country project," Hogan said, though "there might be some degree of financing they need from us."
Sun Country hasn't settled on a decision to move or a timeline for the potential project.
"It is not a done deal. We are planning to consolidate our [two] Twin Cities locations into a single location," said Kirsten Wenker, a Sun Country spokeswoman. "That is the direction we are moving toward."
Wenker said any renovations would happen within the hangar's existing footprint rather than expand the square footage.
Sun Country's new leaders have been looking for a different headquarters building for months. The airline leases its existing home office — located just across the Minnesota River from the airport near the intersection of Interstate 494 and Pilot Knob Road — from the Davis family. Brothers Marty and Mitch Davis owned Sun Country for six years before selling the airline to funds affiliated with Apollo Global Management earlier this year.
Kristen Leigh Painter • 612-673-4767
