Logan sets holiday-week parking discounts

Logan International Airport officials moved today to make permanent holiday-week parking discounts at the airport garage.

The airport will also offer what it hopes are more appealing discounts for Logan Express bus service during school vacation weeks.

For the February and April vacation weeks, Logan will offer up to 14 days of parking at the Braintree, Peabody, and Woburn Logan Express parking lots for $44, instead of the normal $66 weekly rate. Airport officials said they think offering a parking discount, rather than a discount on the $20 adult round-trip, could do more to increase usage of Logan Express during those weeks.

The discount won't be offered at the Framingham Logan Express lot because it rarely has extra spaces available then, officials said. The board of the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Logan, also voted to permanently authorize $16-a-day discounted parking in the central garage -- instead of the usual $22 -- during Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks and at other times of the year when business travel is low but leisure travel is high.

During the holiday periods over the last two months, Logan began offering the $16 parking rate as a way of avoiding a past situation where the main garage was nearly empty, but the airport had to run costly shuttle buses to off-airport parking because most Logan travelers wanted to get the economy parking rate. By charging the economy rate in the main garage, Logan provides better convenience for parking and also saves money on shuttle bus expenses, Massport executive director Thomas J. Kinton Jr. said.
(By Peter J. Howe, Globe staff)