Departure
93%
vs 95% ▼ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Cherry Capital Airport (KTVC) serves Traverse City, Michigan, sitting on the shore of Grand Traverse Bay in the northern Lower Peninsula. It is a joint civil-military field, home to both scheduled airline services and U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City, and offers a long ILS-equipped runway alongside a shorter crosswind strip, making it a useful and well-equipped destination for visiting VFR traffic.
Cherry Capital Airport lies on the southeastern edge of Traverse City, Michigan, and combines commercial airline operations with general aviation and a resident U.S. Coast Guard air station. For a visiting pilot it offers a substantial, well-lit runway with an instrument landing system plus a shorter crosswind runway, control tower services, and a single FBO, making it a practical and interesting stop in Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula.
The airport is located about two nautical miles southeast of downtown Traverse City, on the shore of Grand Traverse Bay. It shares its site with U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City, which has operated from the field since 1946, so pilots can expect to see Coast Guard helicopter and fixed-wing traffic in the pattern alongside airline and general aviation movements.
Cherry Capital Airport has two physical runways. Runway 10/28 is the primary strip, 6,892 feet long with a hard surface, lit, and served by an ILS. Runway 18/36 is the secondary crosswind runway, also hard-surfaced and lit, with runway 36 measuring 5,367 feet and runway 18 measuring 5,095 feet. Field elevation is 617 feet.
Traverse City Tower operates on 124.2 MHz, which also serves as the common traffic advisory frequency when the tower is not active. Ground control is on 121.8 MHz, ATIS broadcasts on 119.175 MHz, and UNICOM is available on 122.95 MHz. Minneapolis Center handles overlying en route traffic on 132.9 MHz, and Lansing Radio provides flight service on 122.2 MHz. The field is equipped with an ILS approach to the long runway.
Cherry Capital Airport opened in 1936 as Traverse City Airport, replacing an earlier field known as Ransom Field. The airport was later relocated onto the site of what became a naval air station, opened in 1946, which today hosts U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City. The field originally had four runways, of which all but one have since been replaced; remnants of the old runways survive in places, some abandoned and in private ownership. In the fall of 2004 a new terminal was built on the south side of the east-west runway, replacing the previous terminal on the north side, and this redevelopment also saw the removal of a third, diagonal runway. The east-west runway was subsequently extended in 2013 and 2017 to accommodate longer-range flights.
Cherry Capital Airport today combines scheduled airline service with general aviation activity and the resident U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City. General aviation is supported by a single fixed-base operator, AvFlight. Based aircraft at the field include single-engine and multi-engine airplanes, helicopters, and jets. In 2026 the airport began a multi-year terminal expansion project, though this construction relates to the passenger terminal rather than the runways or general aviation ramp.