TRAVERSE CITY — Cherry Capital Airport’s smallest air carrier — and its most-controversial over the past year — is temporarily suspending its operations in northern Michigan.
Cherry Capital Airport CEO Kevin Klein informed the Northwest Regional Airport Authority Board this week that Avelo Airlines — whose work flying deportees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sparked both local and national backlash for the low-cost airline over the past year — is suspending air service at TVC in 2026 as the airline re-tools its aircraft fleet across the country.
Klein said Avelo is temporarily halting its service at 22 airports across the country including TVC — most on the West Coast and in the Midwest — as it’s converting its aircraft fleet to 737-800 aircraft which carries 189 seats.
“They felt that was too large for this market,” Klein said.
Klein said the airline is adding up to 100 smaller Embraer 195-E2 aircraft, which feature 140 seats, to its fleet to serve its smaller markets and he anticipates the airline will return air service to TVC in the spring of 2027. Avelo, which is based in Houston, added its TVC service in 2024 with flights on Wednesdays and Saturdays to Tweed-New Haven Airport (HVN) in Connecticut from early June through Labor Day.
Avelo received a three-year waiver of landing and related fees that’s standard with all new carriers that bring their service to TVC. Officials at the time said the waiver is worth about $40,000 a year to the airline, depending on the frequency of the flights. The airport also committed $50,000 to marketing the new service, partially underwritten by Traverse City Tourism.
The airline carried just under 3,600 local passengers in 2025 according to the airport’s year-end operations report. That’s the smallest total among the airport’s seven air carriers.
Avelo’s ICE flights drew criticism at several meetings of the airport board over the past year, as area residents urged airport officials to publicly condemn the ICE flights, with others urging TVC to cut ties with the airline. The airline’s involvement with the ICE deportation flights sparked a number of citizen protests and boycotts around the country, as well as complaints from some politicians in cities and states where Avelo operates.TVC officials released a statement in late July that stated in part “Cherry Capital Airport (TVC) is aware of recent public interest and media reports concerning flights operated by Avelo Airlines that have been mentioned in connection with federal deportation efforts. Avelo Airlines flights operating at TVC are not associated with any federal deportation activities. Avelo’s service at TVC is focused exclusively on providing scheduled, public passenger service.”Local airport officials this week also noted that Avelo earlier this month announced it was ending its deportation flights for the U.S. government.“We moved a portion of our fleet into a government program which promised more financial stability but placed us in the center of a political controversy,” CEO Andrew Levy said in an email to employees earlier this month that was reported by the business television network CNBC. “The program provided short-term benefits but ultimately did not deliver enough consistent and predictable revenue to overcome its operational complexity and costs.”