Airport officials said they are confident Logan will eventually regain its status as a major international airport as vaccination rates rise, the pandemic recedes and border restrictions relax.
“The city of Boston is attractive, the economies are solid, and the airlines are smart,” said Lisa Wieland, executive director of the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates Logan. “When you think of the industries that are concentrated here – higher education and hospitals – these are travel-intensive industries. . . The international airlines have confirmed their interest in resuming service with Logan. “
Despite the unprecedented drop in demand, Logan’s officials have pushed plans to add four new gates to its crowded international terminal. But future plans to add three more gates have been put on hold by the pandemic, a sign of the long-term uncertainties the industry and the airport are facing.
“Phase two will happen when we have a financial plan and passenger demand comes back,” said Jennifer Mehigan, a spokeswoman for Massport.
Although modest, there is some evidence that international travel is increasing, with the number of passengers in this March-April time window doubling compared to a similar one-month period in July and August.
Domestic traffic from Boston is growing faster but is still well below pre-pandemic levels. In March, the number of passengers in Logan rose to about 30 percent of 2019 levels, up from the much lower rates at the start of the pandemic. At a recent public meeting, Masssport Aviation Director Ed Freni described the improved numbers as “good signs of recovery.”
In April things started to get going. According to the Transportation Security Administration, about 25,700 people passed through Logan’s security checkpoints on a typical April day, compared with 18,800 in March, 14,800 in February, and 11,700 in January.
However, Logan is lagging behind other U.S. airports in some key metrics. For example, airlines are offering less than two-thirds of Logan’s pre-pandemic domestic capacity this spring, compared to about 85 percent nationwide. Mass sports officials attribute the discrepancy to interruptions in business and student travel, and find that airlines are focusing more on vacation travel.
Logan now serves a total of 92 destinations, significantly more than last spring when the flight schedule had dropped to 72. Flights to Tokyo, Paris and Dubai are now available after being suspended earlier in the pandemic, according to a Globe analysis. But prior to the pandemic, Logan had more than 125 destinations in total.
Some new international flights are also being planned. Delta will soon launch a service to Iceland and take advantage of the reopening of this tourism-driven country for Americans. And JetBlue recently announced that it will soon be bringing Bostonians to Vancouver. But the Canadian border is still closed, and that flight won’t take off until mid-2022.
It remains complicated to travel internationally, although the rules differ from place to place. Many countries, including much of Europe, are still banning Americans. The UK is technically open to Americans, but it does require intense testing and quarantine rules. But Americans were able to travel to Mexico during the pandemic. Many overseas flights serve primarily travelers on important journeys, dual citizens, or in some cases just cargo, and operate at much lower frequencies.
“International is a word, but there is no single approach to reopening the world,” said Henry Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research Group, a California company that oversees the travel industry. “Airlines are converting their route networks, but are not offering anything like the frequencies” from before the pandemic.
But with the U.S. vaccine campaign leading the way, the list of travel destinations could soon expand. Greece and Iceland are among the countries that recently announced that they would be accepting vaccinated American tourists. Other European countries are likely to follow in the coming months, possibly by the end of June. These decisions are both public health and world politics.
“There will be many carefully discussed and negotiated diplomatic meetings between the US and other countries on the reopening of the borders,” said Harteveldt.
Other factors will also determine when to recover, including returning from business trips. However, Wieland said she expects Logan’s international travel to “recover in the next few years”.
“Home will return before foreign, and vacation travel will return before business. What percentage will return, what could be lost forever? I think time will tell, “she said. But “all international airlines that operated in Logan before the pandemic are keen to continue with Logan. It’s a question of when. “
