Logan rebound needs more time

It’s going to take another year or two for Logan Airport to reach cruising altitude. Airlines for America, an industry trade group, reports passenger numbers nationwide are basically back to 2019 levels after plunging during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. But as Logan wrapped up its past fiscal year in June, Massport chief executive Lisa Wieland reports traffic is still down by about 5 percent from the heady days before COVID when it seemed business at Logan would just keep climbing toward the sky. As Logan enters the busy summer season of July and August, she expects traffic to still be off by about 5 percent. In the 12-month period ended in May, Logan’s passenger count of about 39 million was 6.9 percent below the record levels of 2018-2019, when nearly 42 million passengers traveled through the airport. That said, Logan is still notching double-digit gains each month compared with last year. (Massport doesn’t yet have June data.) In comparison, the airline trade group reported that traffic across 440 US airports was down only 2.6 percent from four years ago. And chief economist John Heimlich said passenger numbers are now about what they were four years ago, and will likely continue to match or exceed 2019 levels through the summer. Logan has come a long way since the quiet, early days of the pandemic when airlines suspended flights, people stayed home, and the annual passenger count dropped under 13 million. Air travel fell more sharply in Boston than the nation as a whole in part because of the relatively strict shutdown rules in Massachusetts, and Wieland had to make significant cuts to operations and construction plans to balance the books — even with an infusion of federal recovery funds. Heimlich noted that Boston depends heavily on corporate travel, which still has not rebounded. — JON CHESTO