The Massachusetts Port Authority's (Massport) Logan International Airport had approximately 564,000 passengers fly in and out during the Thanksgiving week (November 24 - December 1), topping last year's holiday travel by 9.2%. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, typically the busiest day of the year, more than 102,000 flew in and out of Logan, a 10% increase over the previous year.

While passengers continue to return to the skies, hassles continue to decline as new Transportation Security Administration personnel and expanded and reconfigured checkpoints easily handled the heavy flow of travelers. Throughout most of the holiday week, the waiting time at the checkpoints remained under 5 minutes, placing Logan in the top five of airports with minimal delays in a national survey conducted by Travelocity.com. On Sunday, December 1st, the average wait was 10 minutes.

The preliminary passenger figures released today also showed a holiday spike in Logan Express ridership. During the Thanksgiving week, 34,156 people chose one of the four Logan Express services, a 48% increase over last year's 23,057. The number of passengers using the MBTA's Airport Station also climbed by almost 5% from 74,159 in 2001 to 77,859 this year.

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