All Things Travel: Flier-Friendly Changes At Logan Airport
BOSTON (CBS) – Logan is going flier-friendly this month.
The airport is rolling out more changes for passengers than any month in the last 20 years. People will notice curb changes to speed up bus service, new color-coded signs in the terminals and digital signs outside to tell people when the next Massport bus will arrive.
The biggest change of all will be personal service. The airport is moving 20 employees in bright blue "ask me" shirts inside and outside the terminals to assist passengers.
Terminal A shifts took place this week and will end with Terminal C on September 20.
Logan is expecting record traffic, handling more than 30 million passengers this year.
All of the changes are a prelude to the opening of the $300 million consolidated car rental building on September 25. For the first time, all of the rent-a-car companies will be housed in one new building at the airport.
Advantage and Thrifty will join Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar Enterprise, Hertz and National in the CONRAC.
At that time, the car rental companies will cease operating their own bus vehicles and switch to larger buses operated by Massport. The previous service had 100 vehicles circling Logan. That figure will drop to 28 buses in the busiest times of the day. This change is expected to reduce airport related emissions by about a third in the next 12 months.
After these changes, Massport will turn its attention to changes in Terminal B.
The first floor of the Terminal B garage will be turned into a staging area for limos, high occupancy vans and taxis. More than 400 parking spaces will be lost in that move. Also, in the first quarter of next year, United Airlines will move to a new section of Terminal B and consolidate its gates now in Terminal A and Terminal C.
A major challenge facing the airport is the closing of the Callahan Tunnel in late December for about three months. That will put an extra strain on the Ted Williams Tunnel and Route 1 bringing people to Logan.
The tunnel closing will take place at a busy time for the airport. Both Massachusetts and New Hampshire have winter school vacations during that time. It is a peak time for winter family vacations.
Bob Weiss reports on business travel on Mondays at 5:55 a.m. on WBZ NewsRadio 1030.
