Sophie Cunningham: Mercury 'still flew a normal flight' to Vegas amid WNBA's new chartered travel program

A new era for the Phoenix Mercury is just getting started and while the players can’t wait to fully get the season going, there are hurdles that are standing in their way from receiving the proper treatment they need to succeed.

The WNBA announced that its chartered travel program would start on May 21st and with the day finally here, teams are hoping to see positive change in how they get from city to city.

One of the players on the Mercury who has been vocal about this new change is Sophie Cunningham who talked about where the situation stood and how excited she was for it when asked at the team’s media day.

“The charter flights are key, I am a representative of the WNBA for our team and I don’t know why it hasn’t happened sooner,” Cunningham said. “It’s kinda ridiculous that it has taken this long. You have fans sitting around us like ‘Why aren’t you guys flying charter, like you guys deserve way more, the attention is on you guys.’ We finally got it done and we are super excited.

“You might see the competition and the way that we play might go up too because we are getting treated better. We don’t have to have layovers, don’t have to go to the airport five hours before and just be sitting there. Hopefully you guys will see when you pour more into a product, you get a better product.”

While the program is just getting started and should help the league going forward, there are still underlying issues that need further examination and evaluation.

When heading to Las Vegas to play the Aces, Cunningham stated that they were not issued a charter plane to travel up there, but even with the charter she believes they’ll have on the way back to Arizona, there are still problems.

“We still flew a normal flight up here [Las Vegas] which is not good,” Cunningham said. “I think on the way home, I think we finally get our charter. With that, we are so grateful that we are going to start chartering. But with that, there are a lot of things that need to be adjusted. Our bags and some of our people can’t fly with us because our charter is too small while other teams get big planes. We want to talk about a competitive advantage, well that is one right there that our team has to be split up and our bags don’t even travel with us.

“Social media makes everything sound so great and so butterflies and rainbows now that we got the charters, but some teams don’t even have a proper charter to fly with your whole team. We are grateful but there is still work to be done and I do think we get to charter home tonight which is good, but again, not everyone gets to come with us. Still needs room for improvement.”

Air travel has been a sticking point surrounding the WNBA for years as they have mostly had to fly on commercial airlines. The league funded charter travel only throughout the playoffs and in back-to-back game situations for teams who needed to travel by air last season.

On May 7, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert revealed that this new program would cost nearly $25 million per year for the next two seasons.

Time will tell if the problems will be resolved since the program is just beginning, but there are flaws so far that will need to be fixed if the league wants to fulfill its promise.

The Mercury and Aces clash inside Michelob ULTRA Arena tonight at 7 p.m. PT.