Logan prepares for Thanksgiving travel surge

Boston’s Logan International Airport is stocking up on cots, food and beverage vouchers, and employees volunteering to aid the distressed. The airport isn’t bracing for a natural disaster, but rather the busiest travel week of the year: Thanksgiving.

Logan officials expect almost a 3 percent increase in passengers compared to the same period last year and flights that will be 95 percent to 100 percent full. As a result, the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs the airport, is unveiling a program to comfort passengers who get stuck sitting at terminal gates instead of on airplanes.

Travelers who become stranded or severely delayed can sleep on cots and cash in water and meal vouchers at concessionaries that will stay open later than usual. The airport is hoping to minimize such snafus by allowing any airline’s late flight to unload passengers at certain gates so the carrier can get back on schedule sooner.

Also, Massport’s board voted today to charge economy-lot parking rates at the more expensive airport garages that are closer to the terminals, offering drivers a $6 daily savings. The discount will apply to travelers who enter the Central Parking Garage, Terminal B Garage or Terminal E lots between 3 am Tuesday, November 20th and 3 am Sunday, November 25th; it doesn’t matter how long the vehicle is parked there. The airport introduced its Thanksgiving discount last year because business travelers who typically park in the garages disappear during the holidays while leisure travelers overflowed the cheaper lots.

For those taking public transportation, Massport is also adding additional Logan Express buses serving Braintree, Framingham, Peabody and Woburn. And additional buses will run on the airport routes to the MBTA station to handle increased riders on the MBTA Blue Line.

In other business, the Massport board approved a $13 million project budget to convert former Delta Reservations Building 11 into a new headquarters for Logan’s State Police, which has outgrown its home in Terminal C.
(By Nicole C. Wong, Globe staff)