'Our Market is Strong and Very Resilient': Airport director Kevin Klein sees blue skies ahead
June 2026
Cherry Capital Airport Director Kevin Klein sat down in mid-May with the TCBN to share the latest updates on the airport’s big expansion, what direct destinations are on his wish list, and expectations for yet another summer record.
TCBN: We attended your new terminal groundbreaking in May and it was a great turnout and event!
Klein: It was just a great event. Seeing the community support and all the people coming out for it was beyond belief. With an event like that you never know how many will attend, but it really shows the belief in this project, even with weather. I was very grateful. And this expansion will impact the entire community for the next 50 years. So it’s one that’s needed and I think is going to make a major economic impact on the region.
TCBN: Curious how much of your time you spend on this project these days versus maybe a year or two ago.
Klein: It's a big part of my day, but also a great part of the day. A year ago we were working on design and having your typical meetings on financing and bonds and that entire path. But now today, those are in place, so we’re really focusing on the constructibility, and meeting with contractors every day to make sure the execution happens. And it’s fun because you’re seeing something tangible. It’s such a great team with our project lead Bob Nelson, who’s our airport engineer; he lives and breathes it 24 hours a day. And we have great consultants and contractors, including M&M Excavating and The Christman Company. It’s a lot of coordination right now because when you have grant financing, you build per the description because that's how the money flows. So right now it’s the civil work and site readiness for terminal. Then Christman will be working on the demolition of the tie-ins to our current building and then working out to the site shortly with foundations being set in June.
TCBN: So how much of your time is dedicated to expansion right now?
Klein: It's probably about 50% of my day right now, and it will be less and less over time, when it will be shifting more to working with the airlines and air service development.
TCBN: You must at this point have a very accurate picture of how summer 2026 will be?
Klein: I just received this morning the latest report, and it shows 240,000 seats in the next 90 days for our peak season. That would be a record, so it’s feeling very strong, even with the FAA changes required of United and American in Chicago.
TCBN: What were those?
Klein: On May 17 they had to reduce their flight schedules out of Chicago due to safety and air traffic control, so that cut about 3,500 seats from our market immediately. But what’s great is that both airlines switched aircraft sizes with larger seats to recover a lot of those lost seats and we really fared well. Meanwhile United had announced they were expanding into 10 cities, but some of those were cut way back and some had to be eliminated all together.
TCBN: Our market is strong even with all the consumer headwinds?
Klein: Our market is strong and very resilient. Some airfares are certainly higher; the longer stage routes are running maybe $600-$700. But even now in markets with heavy competition like Boston, routes from here are still $180-$220, so still some really good fares. Florida fares remain really inexpensive, and I still see Chicago fares at $234.
TCBN: So are fares up overall around 15% with the fuel costs and all?
Klein: Yes, in that ballpark. But instead of increasing just the base fare, most airlines are putting some of those increases on bag fees and other ancillary charges.
TCBN: How is business travel doing these days?
Klein: I think it remains strong. I was listening to a local group talking about the number of trips they have to take this summer for training purposes and I was surprised. Business travel remains strong right now. We’ll see as things shake out with the crisis in the world that might slow things down, but I go back to other challenges like in 2022 coming out of COVID, or even the 2008 downtown. Business travel here tailed off a bit but remained consistent. For this year so far we are down 2%, but mostly due to March weather, so we have not seen a slowdown. April was up 5.6%, and we will probably beat last year’s totals.
TCBN: I keep going back to how people here just don’t appreciate that being in a winning airport market is so rare.
Klein: It’s very true, and it takes some effort on our part to explain that. But we’ve always been very underserved (for air service) for the population we have. There’s obviously a dramatic difference between January and July traffic. We’ve been able to get airlines to right-size their equipment and get the right city pairs at the right time, but it took years of going to airlines and helping them trust our information. Other markets say they also need the big airlines, but then they can’t support them. We’ve proven ourselves here.
TCBN: But there are lots of other tourism markets that also have seasonal swings.
Klein: That’s also true, and some ski markets have really struggled. But again we’ve been successful because we don’t put something out there unless we know it’s going to be successful.
TCBN: What are some next direct destinations you’d love to add to the roster here?
Klein: There are a couple. First we’d like to extend Denver to year-round, which went to December 1 last year. It’s our hottest market when it comes to revenue for the airlines; most people think it’s Chicago, but Denver in the summer outpaces Chicago revenue-wise. That’s our two- to three-year goal. And Dallas is the next one. It’s very strong for American, and they keep extending it on each side of the summer peak, so that’s another one. Those two cities are priorities. From a wish list, it would be Los Angeles and San Francisco. Those two are the best West Coast hubs and can connect anywhere on the West Coast. We also have a lot of people from here who go to Hawaii.
TCBN: Are you all set for parking?
Klein: Yes, the parking is in place. The economy lot is doing very well and has offset some of the stress, especially through spring break. What I’ll call the immediate long-term goal is to expand the economy lot, and then even longer-term we’re looking at a parking deck. We will need one sooner or later.
TCBN: Everything set for the Cherry Festival this year?
Klein: Yes, the Cherry Festival is great. Our agreement is in place for the daytime (air) show and also the agreement for the nighttime show. I’m really looking forward to that!
