International flights are making a comeback at Boston's Logan Airport following two years of pandemic disruptions.
“It’s coming back,” Massport Director of Aviation Ed Freni said. “It’s not where it was. We’re about a dozen flights less, nonstop flights less than we were in ’19.”
Logan will be up to 45 nonstop international flights by this summer. It’s still down from 56 in 2019, but a lot more than the spring of 2020, when the number of overseas destinations were down to just eight.
Get Boston local news, weather forecasts, lifestyle and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Boston’s newsletters.
International service makes up 20% of Logan’s business, so the past two years have been tough.
“The interest is there, the airlines are bringing back service, they’re adding frequency, they will continue to add frequency as they succeed in filling the airplanes,” Freni said.
In fact, Delta Airlines just added nonstop service to Tel Aviv, Israel and Athens, Greece. There are two new airlines as well: Play, which flies to Iceland and Condor, which serves Germany. The airport is still waiting for the return of flights to key cities in China.
Logan is also moving full steam ahead with its expansion of Terminal E, adding four new gates to the 12 already there.
Get updates on what's happening in Boston to your inbox. Sign up for our News Headlines newsletter.
“It will help when we get back to the 2019 levels to be able to gate the airplanes and the demand of when the international flights want to operate,” Freni said.
Construction is expected to be finished on time in the summer of 2023, according to Freni. It’s just another piece of the puzzle in bringing Logan Airport back as a key international player.
“Right now I think we’re in a pretty good position,” Freni said.
