Logan Airport Capital Projects

July board meeting slide deck is out.

Some positive trends for Logan Express usage in 2024 vs. 2023:

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Not much else regarding Logan itself in the meeting deck.
 
So a suggestion for Massport: Renumber all Logan gates in a single sequence, as they do at SFO, LAX, etc. Reasons:

- A-B connector completes post-security connections, making the whole airport function as a continuous concourse.
- B-C connector gates have numbers that make zero sense in sequence because the transition is at a random place and B and C are numbered from opposite ends.
- Frankly, all of the C gate numbers make limited sense...
- Gates in the former Terminal D have dual C/E numbers, which is confusing.

Here's what that looks like. I have made a mistake here and there given the travails of using overhead imagery...

This scheme has the potential to make terminals identifiable by multiples of 10 - A (0s, 10s, 20s), B (30s, 40s, 50s, 60s), C (70s, 80s, 90s), E (100s). In a perfect world, you would also split B in half and refer to gates 50-69 as C, turning the current Terminal C into Terminal D, but these things are too baked into Bostonians' mental picture of the airport to change.

1726068238376.png
 
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Equilibria said:
So a suggestion for Massport: Renumber all Logan gates in a single sequence, as they do at SFO, LAX, etc. Reasons:

- A-B connector completes post-security connections, making the whole airport function as a continuous concourse.
- B-C connector gates have numbers that make zero sense in sequence because the transition is at a random place and B and C are numbered from opposite ends.
- Frankly, all of the C gate numbers make limited sense...
- Gates in the former Terminal D have dual C/E numbers, which is confusing.

Here's what that looks like. I have made a mistake here and there given the travails of using overhead imagery...

This scheme has the potential to make terminals identifiable by multiples of 10 - A (0s, 10s, 20s), B (30s, 40s, 50s, 60s), C (70s, 80s, 90s), E (100s). In a perfect world, you would also split B in half and refer to gates 50-69 as C, turning the current Terminal C into Terminal D, but these things are too baked into Bostonians' mental picture of the airport to change.

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You only do this if you are confident you are not going to modify the gate sequence in the relatively near future (looking at you C piers).

If you have any reason to believe the sequence may need to change, you use a discontinuous numbering scheme (or at least gaps in numbering to accommodate changes), so you don't have to redo the whole airport, or get into the obvious fail of C100 A, B, C, D....
 
JeffDowntown said:
You only do this if you are confident you are not going to modify the gate sequence in the relatively near future (looking at you C piers).

If you have any reason to believe the sequence may need to change, you use a discontinuous numbering scheme (or at least gaps in numbering to accommodate changes), so you don't have to redo the whole airport, or get into the obvious fail of C100 A, B, C, D....
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That's only if you care, our terminals have been called A, B, C, and E for how long now?
 
TheRatmeister said:
That's only if you care, our terminals have been called A, B, C, and E for how long now?
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No one cares about pure sequential numbering either.

It is never really sequential anyway, because you have terminal breaks, Y's and T's in piers.

People care about it being reasonably logical with adequate wayfinding.
 
JeffDowntown said:
You only do this if you are confident you are not going to modify the gate sequence in the relatively near future (looking at you C piers).

If you have any reason to believe the sequence may need to change, you use a discontinuous numbering scheme (or at least gaps in numbering to accommodate changes), so you don't have to redo the whole airport, or get into the obvious fail of C100 A, B, C, D....
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Yup, which is why I did. See the note I put next to the C piers about leaving 6 numbers worth of slack there.

Also, FWIW, I think it's less of a fail to have a couple of gates become A/B than to have a sequence of 39, 40, 23, 24... a person can pretty easily process an A/B subsequence (and it will need to exist in Terminal E regardless for the big jet gates).

JeffDowntown said:
No one cares about pure sequential numbering either.

It is never really sequential anyway, because you have terminal breaks, Y's and T's in piers.

People care about it being reasonably logical with adequate wayfinding.
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You don't have terminal breaks anymore - that's kind of my whole point. It's one continuous concourse now from B through to the end of E - airside, the only breaks are in front of security checkpoints. You have piers in a few places, but people can intuit "the next bunch of gates is down that hallway to my right" - that's how airports work. What isn't intuitive is the 39, 40, 23, 24 on the B-C connector or the absolutely bonkers 10, 9, 8, 1A, 7/1, 6/2, 5/3 on the C-E connector. Terminals A, B, and E all count up going clockwise around the airport, but C counts up going counter-clockwise, which is an issue now that the connectors have made C a hub (and part of the point of them is to enable transfers to/from international flights for people who don't know the airport very well).

And you are correct - no one cares about purely sequential numbering, they care about it generally working right where they can see it. So why would we need a sequential scheme that can stay pure forever?
 
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Equilibria said:
Yup, which is why I did. See the note I put next to the C piers about leaving 6 numbers worth of slack there.

Also, FWIW, I think it's less of a fail to have a couple of gates become A/B than to have a sequence of 39, 40, 23, 24... a person can pretty easily process an A/B subsequence (and it will need to exist in Terminal E regardless for the big jet gates).


You don't have terminal breaks anymore - that's kind of my whole point. It's one continuous concourse now from B through to the end of E - airside, the only breaks are in front of security checkpoints. You have piers in a few places, but people can intuit "the next bunch of gates is down that hallway to my right" - that's how airports work. What isn't intuitive is the 39, 40, 23, 24 on the B-C connector or the absolutely bonkers 10, 9, 8, 1A, 7/1, 6/2, 5/3 on the C-E connector. Terminals A, B, and E all count up going clockwise around the airport, but C counts up going counter-clockwise, which is an issue now that the connectors have made C a hub (and part of the point of them is to enable transfers to/from international flights for people who don't know the airport very well).

And you are correct - no one cares about purely sequential numbering, they care about it generally working right where they can see it. So why would we need a sequential scheme that can stay pure forever?
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OK, but the flexible numbering of some of the boundary gates between terminals is operationally important.

Because we have separate ground side terminals, we need to direct passengers to the right ground side terminal, and gate association helps. But we also have airlines with only one or two flights per day (international) and mostly all around the same time. So we need more E gates in the afternoon and evening than any other time. If you permanently grab enough E gates for the peak, they would sit empty for the rest of the day (or risk sending people to the wrong ground side terminal. That is why flexible numberings (dual C/E designations) helps with operational efficiency for C/E and could perhaps help in other terminals (but international is the biggest need).
 
JeffDowntown said:
OK, but the flexible numbering of some of the boundary gates between terminals is operationally important.

Because we have separate ground side terminals, we need to direct passengers to the right ground side terminal, and gate association helps. But we also have airlines with only one or two flights per day (international) and mostly all around the same time. So we need more E gates in the afternoon and evening than any other time. If you permanently grab enough E gates for the peak, they would sit empty for the rest of the day (or risk sending people to the wrong ground side terminal. That is why flexible numberings (dual C/E designations) helps with operational efficiency for C/E and could perhaps help in other terminals (but international is the biggest need).
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This gets at bigger underlying problem at Logan of underutilized sole-use gates boxing out competition.
 
JeffDowntown said:
OK, but the flexible numbering of some of the boundary gates between terminals is operationally important.

Because we have separate ground side terminals, we need to direct passengers to the right ground side terminal, and gate association helps. But we also have airlines with only one or two flights per day (international) and mostly all around the same time. So we need more E gates in the afternoon and evening than any other time. If you permanently grab enough E gates for the peak, they would sit empty for the rest of the day (or risk sending people to the wrong ground side terminal. That is why flexible numberings (dual C/E designations) helps with operational efficiency for C/E and could perhaps help in other terminals (but international is the biggest need).
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This is part of the value of a single sequence. You can be told "you're at gate 99" and it doesn't matter whether it's E or C. All you need to know is that if you're flying Jetblue (or picking up someone who is) you need to pick them up at C (unless they're coming in internationally, in which case E). I don't think flexible numberings help anyone, and the only reason we need them at all is because the lowest numbers of both E and C occur at the point where the terminals meet. With a universal system, that's no longer true.

In my conception, the letters shouldn't represent terminals, they should represent landsides. It's okay to have an international flight leave from a C gate. Heck, we have international flights leaving from C and A gates now and have for many years... The only reason to have letters with the numbers at all is that in most cases the association works and people are used to it so why not. LAX doesn't bother and just uses the bare number.
 
Maybe it's just me, but I could definitely see myself getting confused because certain gate designations have been reused from the current numbering system. To me, I see B32 and think "That's in the old AA pier" and know how to get there without much thought.
 
737900er said:
Maybe it's just me, but I could definitely see myself getting confused because certain gate designations have been reused from the current numbering system. To me, I see B32 and think "That's in the old AA pier" and know how to get there without much thought.
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That's fair, but I think that asking people to get used to one change once is an acceptable thing.
 
Equilibria said:
This is part of the value of a single sequence. You can be told "you're at gate 99" and it doesn't matter whether it's E or C. All you need to know is that if you're flying Jetblue (or picking up someone who is) you need to pick them up at C (unless they're coming in internationally, in which case E). I don't think flexible numberings help anyone, and the only reason we need them at all is because the lowest numbers of both E and C occur at the point where the terminals meet. With a universal system, that's no longer true.

In my conception, the letters shouldn't represent terminals, they should represent landsides. It's okay to have an international flight leave from a C gate. Heck, we have international flights leaving from C and A gates now and have for many years... The only reason to have letters with the numbers at all is that in most cases the association works and people are used to it so why not. LAX doesn't bother and just uses the bare number.
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But the gate letter designation helps reinforce the landside designation as well.

Totally sequential number, no coding, works when you have a unified landside structure -- all centralized check in and baggage claim. That is where you see it used. The extra designation helps when you have fragmented landside like we have in Boston.

If your party is arriving at C35 you know they can be met at C terminal baggage claim, because C means landside C facilities

If you flight is departing from E15 you know your check in is in Terminal E landside....

(And those two gate designation could be the same physical gate accessed from two different landside terminals.)

If your flight is at Gate 99 -- 🤷‍♂️ (Particularly a problem with code share flights, where you think your airline is X, and the actually carrier is Y.)
 
JeffDowntown said:
But the gate letter designation helps reinforce the landside designation as well.

Totally sequential number, no coding, works when you have a unified landside structure -- all centralized check in and baggage claim. That is where you see it used. The extra designation helps when you have fragmented landside like we have in Boston.

If your party is arriving at C35 you know they can be met at C terminal baggage claim, because C means landside C facilities

If you flight is departing from E15 you know your check in is in Terminal E landside....

(And those two gate designation could be the same physical gate accessed from two different landside terminals.)

If your flight is at Gate 99 -- 🤷‍♂️ (Particularly a problem with code share flights, where you think your airline is X, and the actually carrier is Y.)
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Fair enough on my musing, but my proposal leaves the letters.
 
That would line up. I would assume the other new lounge space Massport is going to build in C will be an AMEX Centurion Lounge. Boston is a glaring hole in their lounge network.

Wonder how they will work in natural light given this space's location and proximity to windows.
 
mass88 said:
July board meeting slide deck is out.

Some positive trends for Logan Express usage in 2024 vs. 2023:

View attachment 54759

Not much else regarding Logan itself in the meeting deck.
Click to expand...
If Back Bay can have a Logan Express shuttle, then Kendall Square in Cambridge should have one too. The amount of conference travelers going from the airport to that Kendall Square Marriott must be massive. Plus Main St in Kendall already has plenty of curb space for bus loading and layovers. A bus every 30 minutes would do wonders for airport congestion.
 
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