All American: Inside The Summer Of Discontent At Cherry Capital Airport

Amidst a historically turbulent time in the air travel industry, when Cherry Capital Airport has seen traffic drop 95 percent (and then begun to crawl back), four major factors are in play behind the scenes that have defined summer 2020 — and could shape its future.

All American
For more than 30 years, Delta Airlines (or its predecessor Northwest) has dominated air travel out of Cherry Capital. But in just a few short months during the pandemic, TVC’s air carrier market share has been turned upside down. Today and likely for the foreseeable future, American Airlines is Traverse City’s most popular airline. In a typical summer month, Delta would handle approximately 46,000 passengers versus American's 26,000. But in July 2020, 17,000 TVC passengers boarded American planes and only 8,000 boarded Delta.

The reversal is primarily due to American’s overall strategy that differs so dramatically from its competitors: to “win” the recovery. It handed out sanitized hand wipes before other carriers, is selling middle seats while others choose not to, has begun to restore flights more quickly, now plans to resume serving meals, and has added flights in hand-picked cities where travelers might prefer to vacation or enjoy the outdoors while observing social distancing.

As the airlines slash flights virtually across the board, American has actually added flights in and out of Traverse City this summer, expanding its schedules to Charlotte and adding a new route to Washington D.C.

“They chose to say, ‘We want travelers in the strongest markets,’” says TVC Director Kevin Klein. “Places like ours or Colorado or Wyoming where people will go to hike and bike and social distance. American engaged that strategy. And I think it’s a good thing that everyone [airlines] is doing things a little differently."

Far Fewer Flutes And Flights
One very strong standby TVC has counted on for years is the international base of Interlochen Center for the Arts students. Last summer, 785 students flew to Cherry Capital for Interlochen's summer camp. This year? Zero, because the camp transitioned to a virtual setting. Given those students fly from nearly every state and dozens of countries — and are often visited by parents and family members during their stay — that’s a massive hit during peak season at the airport. Then consider student artists traveling outbound from Traverse City for school visits or college auditions, guest artists flying in to teach or perform, and Interlochen staff criss-crossing the globe to visit potential donors, and you have an impact that Klein calls “major. Just major.”

For the in-person fall semester at Interlochen Arts Academy starting tomorrow (August 17), the news is not nearly as bad, though. According to Simone Silverbush, Interlochen’s director of media relations and communications, 100 students will fly from around the world to the area, versus 117 last fall.

Thank The Horses
It’s actually a hobby for some: watching then researching the tail numbers on private jets taxiing the runways to see who’s visiting from where during the peak summer weekends. Aside from the occasional Paris Hilton visit, most of those jets are bringing Great Lakes Equestrian Festival (GLEF) participants, staff, and horses to the area. The several-week-long event brings more private planes to TVC each summer than all other events combined. And Klein says private/general aviation is thankfully experiencing “very busy traffic,” buoyed mostly by a still strong horse jumping competition at Flintfields in Acme, as well as some private corporate travel.

Matthew Morrissey, whose organization owns and operates GLEF, says that, though the organization doesn’t track specific modes of travel, the event last year attracted competitors from 44 states and 15 countries, with most staying in the area more than three weeks. And in more potentially good news for the area’s tourism and airport traffic, Morrissey says “one of the USA’s top show jumping events has moved to TC from New York this year.” GLEF also recently agreed to host the junior hunter finals championship that had been held in another state.

Go To The Desert
Allegiant arrived in Traverse City last summer with only good news: new, direct, low-cost flights from Traverse City to Orlando, St. Petersburg, and Punta Gorda in Florida and Phoenix in Arizona. Sonya Padgett of Allegiant notes, "We have fares on sale through February 2021 and will release a schedule update in the next few weeks. Florida is a popular destination for the Traverse City community, which is why we offer two year-round routes [Orlando and St. Petersburg]. Our [Punta Gorda] route is seasonal and is currently on hiatus. It begins service again in December.” 

But the Traverse City-Phoenix flights appear to be on the chopping block. Padgett notes that the airline plans to put that route “on hiatus in November. It is a popular route for folks from Arizona to visit Traverse City for the Cherry Festival activities. Our network planning team will continue to evaluate demand to determine when and whether we bring it back.” In a report to Grand Traverse County commissioners, Klein noted the Phoenix route is “struggling to survive,” and he tells The Ticker “we need to see Phoenix pick up” in order to preserve regular flights to that western destination.