Boston Logan Airport is an airport I frequently fly through, and I’ve been doing so for many years. I’ve seen just about everything at this airport, and have explored every terminal, almost every restaurant, and almost every gate here.
There’s one thing I hadn’t seen until one of my flights last month, however. I had never seen Logan Airport as empty as it was on this day.
This flight was just another one of my Boston – New York trips, but the difference here is that I was traveling on a Tuesday. Add the fact that this was in the middle of March, it sort of makes sense that there just weren’t many travelers. I was still surprised to see this quietness, though.
This was the check-in area for American Airlines at 7:45am, with not a single passenger around! The agents were talking amongst themselves with understandably nothing much to do.
This reminded me of the peak Covid days.
Both TSA PreCheck and the regular TSA line had no line. The TSA agent was chatty, and we briefly talked about the empty airport. He said that although they sometimes see days like this in January (the quietest travel month of the year), it’s rarer to see a day like this in March.
The weather was great though; it was a fantastic day to fly. Read about my flight here.
I loved how empty the airport was. The above photo is right after going through TSA.
The area near gates B17 to B21 felt particularly empty. As I said, this reminded me of the Covid travel days.
Even this Starbucks looked relatively empty.
I finally found a crowd near gate B9. They were boarding a flight to Phoenix.
I’m sure the photos speak for themselves.
For comparison, this is the same area as the previous photo, taken at around the same time in the morning on a Thursday in the middle of January.
The fact that I was there on a Tuesday definitely played a role, as Tuesdays tend to be the quietest day for business travel. Thursdays are typically busier.
I soon boarded my flight, which was also pretty empty. I even got a First Class upgrade, which isn’t something that happens often as someone on the lower end of the AAdvantage status ladder.
American Airlines, along with many other US carriers, pulled their guidance last week for the rest of the year after a disappointing first-quarter, citing weak domestic leisure demand. Could this have been a real-life example of this weak leisure demand? I don’t know. For what it’s worth, this is always a quiet season, and there weren’t as many flights scheduled at this time compared to other busier days. Still, the weak Q1 by airlines makes me think about some of my trips over the past several months.
Either way, it was fun walking around and seeing the empty terminal on this day.
All photos taken by the author.
