Cherry Capital Airport was opened in 1936 as Traverse City Airport, replacing Ransom Field. The airport was moved onto the Coast Guard Air Station which had opened in 1946. The airport opened with 4 runways, all but one of which have been replaced. Remnants of the former runways exist to this day, with some being left abandoned and privately owned. In the fall of 2004, Cherry Capital opened a new terminal on the south side of the east-west runway, demolishing the old one on the north side. This project also reconfiguring the runways, removing the third diagonal runway. Since then, Cherry Capital Airport has continued to grow with various carriers adding seasonal service and destinations. Cherry Capital Airport was the recipient of the 2003–04, 2004–05, and 2005–06 Balchen/Post Awards for outstanding achievement in snow and ice control in the small commercial service airport category. Soon, the airport will implement the first biometric access systems in the country. The airport is the ninth to implement the advanced security measures suggested after the September 11, 2001, attacks. This terminal is able to comply better with security regulations and supports a greater number of flights and passengers. In 2013 and 2017, the airport extended the east-west runway of the airport to the east and west respectively to accommodate more flights to more locations, possibly to upgrade to an international airport for Air Canada Express flights. In October 2017, a Costco store opened next to the airport entrance, on a property leased to the warehouse chain for 60 years.
Facilities and aircraft
The Airport has one concourse with six gates. Cherry Capital Airport covers an area of at an elevation of above mean sea level. It has two asphalt paved runways: 10/28 is and 18/36 is. For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2017, the airport had 84,834 aircraft operations, an average of 232 per day: 73% general aviation, 11% scheduled commercial, 7% military, and 9% air taxi. At that time, there were 107 aircraft based at this airport: 80 single-engine, 17 multi-engine, 4 jet and 6 helicopter. In February 2009, Forbes magazine ranked Cherry Capital Airport second in their list of the top ten "rip-off" airports in the United States, citing an average cost per mile to travelers departing TVC of 41 cents. The airport has one fixed-based operator, AvFlight.
Northwest Airlink Flight 4712 the Federal Aviation Administration pilot flight and duty time regulations that permitted the pilots' long, demanding duty day and 2) the TVC operations supervisor's use of ambiguous and unspecific radio phraseology in providing runway braking information. Four safety recommendations were issued to the FAA addressing timely post accident drug testing, training on landing distance assessment performance, ground operations personnel communications, and criteria for runway closures in snow and ice conditions. The NTSB adopted the report on June 10, 2008."
