Manistee County Blacker Airport is a public use airport located three nautical miles (6 km) northeast of the central business district of Manistee, a city in Manistee County, Michigan, United States. It is owned by the Manistee County Blacker Airport Authority and is mostly used for general aviation. Until March 2012, Frontier Airlines provided service to Milwaukee (MKE), subsidized by the Essential Air Service program. On March 15, 2012, a bid to provide Manistee County Blacker Airport with service to and from Chicago Midway International Airport was approved by the USDOT. On May 25, 2012, the Chicago Department of Aviation announced that the route would be flown by Public Charters, Inc. The airport is included in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2021–2025, in which it is categorized as a local general aviation facility. History On Saturday, April 1, 1961, the Manistee News-Advocate reported "North Central's inaugural Flight 914," piloted by Captain Leslie C. Raatz. The aircraft was a Convair 340. Though the article does not explicitly say so, this was the first commercial flight to Manistee. Great Lakes Airlines decided not to bid for another two-year service contract to serve as the main airline. Instead, two other airlines bid and Frontier Airlines won. On September 20, 2011, Frontier announced that it would end its service to Milwaukee on March 8, 2012. Frontier cut the route along with others to discontinue its use of smaller non-efficient planes, including the Embraer 135 that served the route from Milwaukee to Manistee. In May 2012, Public Charters Inc. began scheduled nonstop service, operated by Aerodynamics Inc. (ADI), from Chicago Midway International Airport to and from Manistee. Initially, it provided service with the Embraer-145, a 50-seat regional jet. Public Charters temporarily suspended service in October 2012 when Aerodynamics announced that it would no longer operate the flights. Public Charters' flights at Manistee were then operated by Contour Airlines. In March 2018, Contour Airlines offered six non-stop flights per week in each direction under the name North Country Sky utilizing the Jetstream 31 and Jetstream 41 turbo-prop aircraft. Ultimate Air Shuttle replaced Contour as the operator of the flights in 2019 utilizing the Dornier 328JET after Contour retired their Jetstream aircraft. In the summer of 2020, Cape Air was selected to replace Ultimate Air Shuttle in serving Manistee. The initial bidding process for the contract at the airport became