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Senators demand answers from Sun Country

Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith sent a letter to Sun Country CEO Jude Bricker, asking whether the company did enough to help passengers, including charter a replacement flight, rebook passengers on other airlines, and provide consumers with advanced notice of policies for final flights of the season.

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. - Minnesota Senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar are demanding answers from Sun Country Airlines after more than 200 people were left stranded in Mexico looking for a flight home.

A historic blizzard hit Minnesota this past weekend, causing a flurry of canceled and delayed flights. Multiple travelers contacted KARE 11 complaining of being stranded by the Eagan-based airline.

RELATED: Sun Country takes heat for failing to rebook stranded passengers

On Tuesday Klobuchar and Smith sent a letter to Sun Country CEO Jude Bricker, asking whether the company did enough to help passengers, including charter a replacement flight, rebook passengers on other airlines, and provide consumers with advanced notice of policies for final flights of the season.

“After cancelling flights, airlines have an obligation to support consumers who are making short-notice international travel plans. Sun Country has an obligation to make a good faith effort to charter a replacement flight or rebook passengers on other airlines after a final flight of a season is canceled,” the Senators wrote.

Specifically Smith and Klobuchar asked Bricker the following questions:

  • If Sun Country was unable to make one of its own planes available, did Sun Country make a good-faith effort to rebook passengers on other airlines to provide consumers with a return flight to MSP?
  • If Sun Country was unable to make one of its own planes available, did Sun Country make a good faith effort to charter a replacement flight to provide consumers with a return flight to MSP?
  • For final flights of a season, does Sun Country have a policy to make consumers aware that if flights are cancelled, alternative transportation will be necessary?
  • How much notice did Sun Country provide before the flight cancelations from Los Cabos and Mazatlán, Mexico to MSP? For final flights of a season, does Sun Country have a policy of providing customers any advanced notice of inclement weather that may result in a potential flight cancelation so consumers can make alternative arrangements?
  • When Sun Country cancels flights, does it include any resources to make alternative transportation arrangements?
  • Does Sun Country have procedures for increasing call center capacity during and following severe weather?

Earlier, Smith wrote a letter to the Department of Transportation asking to look into Sun Country’s failures and to explain what is being done to ensure that airline cancellation policies protect travelers.

“Sun Country’s cancellation of these flights left approximately 250 travelers stranded in Mexico,” Sen. Smith wrote. “Despite these passengers being refunded the return-flight portion of their airfare, booking last-minute one-way travel proved to be an unplanned and costly burden on hundreds of consumers traveling to my state…As many travelers are already financially squeezed by the airline industry, it is troublesome to see a domestic carrier abandoning its passengers in a foreign country, forcing them to find their own way home and to incur further expense of time and money.”

A group of travelers could not get ahold of Sun Country so when they returned to Minnesota on Monday afternoon, they showed up at the headquarters in Eagan.

"It's the principle of it. So I'm willing to put in the time and the effort," said Amy Korsgren.

Korsgren and 12 others were in Cancun, celebrating her brother’s birthday. They all booked flights with different airlines in order to get home by Monday. Seven of them visited the Sun Country headquarters and waited about 40 minutes in the vestibule before someone with the airline took their names and contact information over the phone. No one came down to talk to them face-to-face.

"Done a lot of traveling, it happens ... but communicate with us. Even when we went to the airport, no communication. I'm sure there are still people stranded there," Korsgren said.

Gretchen Rehm and her family were supposed to leave Cancun on Monday.

"They're like, 'Well, you don't have seats on this flight.' And we're like, 'What do you mean we don't have seats? We have a confirmed flight. This is our travel date,'" Rehm recalled.

According to Rehm, she was told the airline overbooked their flight.

"We're supposedly confirmed on a flight tomorrow. Although we haven't seen our tickets yet and we haven't seen any of the vouchers that they said they would email to us," she said.

On Monday, Sun Country's Vice President of Marketing Kelsey Dodson-Smith says the airline is refunding its customers their entire roundtrip airfare.

"We understand that it has been difficult to call through to our reservations call center based on the significant increase of call volume and recognize the hold times are unacceptable," Dodson-Smith said.

"Our most challenging recovery situation remains to be our Los Cabos and Mazatlán flights and we cannot apologize enough to those passengers who were hit by the one-two punch of an April snowstorm and the seasonality end date of our winter schedule. Our fleet was already allocated to fly other operations and unfortunately, we were unable to send additional aircraft to Los Cabos and Mazatlán without canceling more flights causing further disruptions to more of our passengers," she said.

Dodson-Smith added, "We felt the best option for these passengers was to provide them a full refund on their airfare so they could get on their way as quickly as possible. If their tickets were booked directly with us, the refund is being automatically credited back to their account. If passengers booked through a travel agency or online travel provider, we are working with those partners to assist with those refunds."

Mark Albert, of The Voyage Report, says Sun Country customers who are upset should also contact the Department of Transportation to file a complaint.

"You can do it right online, it takes less than ten minutes," Albert said. "The Federal Government tracks these, they will CC you as they contact the airline on your behalf to get an answer. Airlines hate this, so make sure you complain."

Albert says it's key for customers to document everything, from contact with Sun Country to the accommodations they paid for in order to get home.

"You want to be able to prove, later, you didn't buy some first class ticket that was really expensive, even if though there was a cheaper option," Albert said. "Sometimes it can get you partial reimbursement for some expenses, sometimes you're out of luck, but you have to do this so that: One, you're letting the airline know that you are not afraid to escalate this; two, the government can track it."

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