When I moved to New Hampshire, Manchester airport (they hadn’t added the “Boston” name) was still in the old terminal. You’d walk out to the planes, and park on the street. They’d put envelopes under the windshield wipers and ask you to mail in $3 (I think it was) per day I was told after they moved to the new terminal and got parking lots, parking income went up three-fold, showing how many people weren’t sending in their payment.
The airport went through two decades of explosive growth (thanks, Southwest Airlines!) but since the early 2000s it has been struggling, like many regional airlines, in the face of industry changes. A new director is trying to whip up enthusiasm and change things – I’ve got a story about it in today’s Monitor (right here).
Crunching some numbers, I encountered this startling statistic: In 2004, Logan Airport in Boston carried about six times as many passengers as Manchester. Last year, it carried 21 times as many passengers as Manchester. (2004 was Manchester’s peak, and Logan has been growing fast in the past couple of years)
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