TRAVERSE CITY — Records keep breaking at Cherry Capital Airport, with another peak travel month recorded in August.
The airport’s recently-released operations report for last month showed a total of 118,771 passengers moving through TVC, an increase of more than 11 percent from August 2023 and a new record for airport travelers in August according to airport CEO Kevin Klein. The airport’s tallied 553,751 passengers through the first eight months of 2024, running 10.8 percent ahead of last year’s record travel pace.
“It’s the best August we’ve ever seen,” Klein said. “It’s been an unbelievable month — it’s awesome.”
While the airport’s Big 3 air carriers — American Airlines (41,693), United (34,510) and Delta (34,339) — led the way in August travel, much of the increase was also fueled by a surge in travel through Allegiant Air. Allegiant added year-round direct flights to Fort Lauderdale in May and also offers air service to Punta Gorda, Tampa/St. Petersburg and Orlando in Florida, along with Phoenix, AZ. Allegiant carried almost 5,200 passengers in August, more than double its recorded air travel in August 2023. Low-cost carrier Avelo, which added weekly air service to New Haven in Connecticut in June, has also carried more than 2,100 passengers this year.
A bounce-back in business travel is also driving up airport activity, Klein said. While the airport saw a surge in leisure travel created by pent-up demand after the COVID-19 pandemic ended in early 2023, Klein said an increase in business travel is helping move the needle on air travel this year. That’s evidenced by higher parking revenue which is an indicator of more local residents taking part in business travel, he said.
“We’re really starting to see the business traveler reinvigorating the year-round travel market,” Klein said. “We’ve really seen that both in August and July … our parking lot is filling up.”
Klein said the airport is on track to easily surpass last year’s travel record of just over 700,000 passengers. Airport traffic continues to be strong during September, he said, and the additional flight service that’s available and the larger aircraft that’s serving the airport should drive passenger traffic near the 800,000-mark this year if operations remain normal.