TVC FLYING HIGH: Airport sets record with 700K passengers in '23

Bill O'Brien, The Record-Eagle, Traverse City, Mich.
·3 min read

Jan. 13—TRAVERSE CITY — Passengers traveling through Cherry Capital Airport totaled more than 700,000 in 2023 — a first for the airport, beating its previous travel record by more than 16 percent.

TVC officials released the airport's 2023 year-end report this week, showing that passenger counts peaked at 700,699 last year. That surpassed the 2022 total of 582,908 by more than 20 percent, and also broke the airport's previous record of 602,626 passengers set in 2021 that was driven by pent-up leisure travel demand following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Airport CEO Kevin Klein said United Airlines led Cherry Capital's traveler surge with more than 229,819 passengers last year, an increase of more than 30 percent from 2022 figures. Delta Airlines was next with 221,706 passengers, which was up nearly 20 percent from the prior year. American Airlines was the third-busiest carrier at TVC last year with more than 174,000 passengers, up about 11 percent from 2022.

December was a particularly busy month for TVC. The three major carriers, plus Allegiant Air, served 41,949 travelers last month, an increase of almost 16 percent from December 2022. That included more than 11,700 passengers during the Christmas holiday travel week between Dec. 22 and 28.

Klein said two primary factors continue to drive Cherry Capital's growth — an increase in flight options through the airport and larger aircraft that the mainline air carriers are using to serve the community. TVC now offers 18 non-stop year-round and seasonal flights to airports around the country, and is working to add direct flights to Houston this year.

"It's an increase in flights and the size of the aircraft that we're seeing," he said. "Really what's driving it is the bigger airplanes that are coming in versus the regional jets that we had before."

Total flight operations at TVC also peaked at 101,219 in 2023. Klein believes that's also a record as it's the first time in his 20-year airport tenure that flight operations have topped the six-figure mark. Flight operations, which include all aircraft take-offs and landings at the airport, totaled 9,639 for the airlines (a 1.9 percent increase). Local aircraft flights that include recreational flyers reached 42,579, which was up 7.6 percent, while itinerant flights that include charter and private aircraft totaled 37,144, a 3.4-percent increase from 2022.

One area where airport numbers declined significantly in 2023 was cargo movement. TVC shipped in 1,926,406 pounds of cargo last year, most of it through global shipping giants United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express. The cargo total was down more than 21 percent from the more than 2.4 million pounds shipped in during 2022, which Klein said continues a downward trend since the end of the COVID pandemic.

"You're seeing less people ship things in now," he said. "During the peak COVID years, everyone was shipping things in."

Military flights in and out of TVC also fell by nearly 24 percent last year to just over 4,300.

More aircraft activity also led to increased fuel sales in 2023, which is another metric that officials use to gauge airport commerce. Klein said TVC sold 4,523,176 gallons of fuel in 2023, a 6.7 increase from the previous year.