Boston · MA
BOS — Logan International Airport
Four terminals, an awkward loop, and a downtown that is genuinely three miles away
Logan's defining advantage is proximity. Few major airports sit as close to their city centre, and on a good run you can be downtown in fifteen minutes. That closeness is the reason to prefer it over the alternatives in the region even when a fare elsewhere looks better.
The complication is the terminal layout. Four terminals sit around a loop road, and the airside connections between them are partial rather than complete. Which pair you are moving between decides whether a connection is a walk or a bus ride through traffic.
Terminals and how they connect
Terminals A and B
Mostly domestic operations. Terminal B is split into two piers that function almost independently, which surprises people expecting one building.
Terminal C
A mix of domestic and some international departures, connected airside to Terminal E by a walkway — the one connection here you can rely on without leaving security.
Terminal E
The international terminal, handling most long-haul arrivals and departures and all arriving international passengers clearing customs.
Getting between them
Terminals C and E are joined airside. Other combinations generally mean leaving security and taking the free shuttle bus around the loop road, which is subject to the same traffic as everything else.
Getting into Boston
Times below are realistic ranges rather than best cases. Rail journeys keep to a timetable; road journeys do not, and treating the two the same is how people miss flights.
Silver Line bus
15 to 25 minutes to South Station
Free from the airport terminals, running in a dedicated tunnel for much of the route. It connects to the Red Line at South Station and is the simplest option for most arrivals, luggage included.
Blue Line subway
20 to 30 minutes to downtown
Requires a free shuttle bus from the terminals to Airport station first. Cheap and reliable, but the two-stage journey with bags is more effort than the Silver Line for most people.
Taxi or rideshare
15 to 40 minutes
Genuinely quick outside peak hours because the distance is short. The tunnels into the city are the bottleneck, and at rush hour the range above is not an exaggeration.
Water taxi
About 10 minutes across the harbour
Seasonal and weather-dependent, running to several downtown and Seaport landings. A pleasant arrival if your destination is near the water and the conditions cooperate.
Connecting through BOS
Treat a Logan connection by terminal pair rather than by the clock. C to E is a walkway and straightforward. Anything else generally means exiting security, riding the shuttle around the loop and clearing screening again, which on a busy morning is not a thirty-minute job. If your itinerary is on separate tickets and changes terminals, allow a great deal more time than the minimum suggests, because nobody is responsible if the first flight runs late.
Worth knowing before you fly
The Silver Line is free from the airport
Boarding at the terminals costs nothing, which is unusual and frequently missed. You pay only if you continue onto the subway network beyond South Station.
Terminal B is effectively two buildings
Its two piers have separate check-in areas and separate security. Arriving at the wrong one means a walk or a shuttle, so check which pier your airline uses.
Weather is a real scheduling risk here
Winter storms and coastal fog disrupt Logan more than most large US airports. On a tight itinerary in January or February, the first flight of the day is a materially safer bet.
Terminal assignments, transit timetables and fares all change. Confirm the details that matter to your trip with the airport or transport operator before you travel.
Will you make your connection at BOS?
Most of what a tight connection costs was never about BOS. Border formalities, a bag that is not through-checked and a door that closes before departure are the same at every airport, and they are usually what strands people — so the sum below is real arithmetic even though we hold no transfer times for BOS.
45 minutes to spare
You have 60 minutes after the delay. This connection needs about 15. Enough room for a gate change.
This is the floor, before you walk anywhere. Every minute below holds at any airport, because none of it is a property of BOS — it is border formalities, baggage and a closing gate. Add your terminal change above to finish the sum.
| 15m | Gate closes before departure | typical published gate cutoff |
| 15m | needed in total | |
Arithmetic, not a prediction — we hold no data that would let us put a probability on your flight, so we do not pretend to. The gate cutoff is a typical published figure; confirm your airline's. Your airline's app knows your actual gates, which we do not.
For four hubs we have read the operator's own transfer figures and datestamped them, which lets the arithmetic run without asking you anything: DFW, IAH, MIA and LAX.
If your flight through BOS is cancelled or badly delayed
BOS in the DOT's own numbers
Departures from Boston as the carriers filed them with the US Department of Transportation for May 2026. This is the figure that decides whether a delay here is anybody's fault but the weather's.
BOS ranks 12th of 41 for departures among the airports we cover, its 21.3% late rate is 1.1 points better than the 22.4% median, and 66.2% of the filed delay minutes were coded as carrier delay or late-arriving aircraft rather than extreme weather or air traffic control, below the 74.6% median here.
- Departures filed
- 9,396
- Over 15 min late
- 21.3%
- Cancelled
- 0.5%
- Carrier delay + late-arriving aircraft
- 66.2%
The last figure is the share of filed delay minutes coded as carrier delay or late-arriving aircraft rather than extreme weather or air traffic control. It sums two BTS fields and is not a BTS field itself, and it establishes no fault: the late-arriving code records that the inbound aircraft was late, not what delayed it. The reasoning, and the objection to it, are set out in the airline accountability index. Summed across reporting carriers only, so a hub carrying a lot of non-reporting regional traffic reads better here than a traveller experiences it.
These are monthly aggregate filing codes. They cannot establish what caused your individual flight, whether it was within the carrier's control, or whether compensation is owed.
The departures from BOS most likely to run late
Every carrier and destination out of Boston with enough filed departures to measure, worst first. A route missing from this list flies too thinly for a percentage to mean anything, which is a reason to withhold it rather than to soften it.
| Route | Airline | Flights | Late |
|---|---|---|---|
| BOS → ATL | Delta Air Lines | 328 | 12.8% |
What the airlines flying here have committed to in writing
Under 14 CFR § 253.4 a carrier's Conditions of Carriage are incorporated into your ticket, which makes them enforceable terms rather than a customer-service policy. Below is what each carrier with filed departures from BOS commits to when the disruption is theirs. These 4 have contract text we have read ourselves.
American Airlines
Ask for the seatAmerican Airlines' contract commits to their own next available flight and says nothing about who sold the ticket.
Rebooking your delayed / canceled flight. Read from the contract on 2026-07-29. Source
Delta Air Lines
Ask for the seatDelta Air Lines' contract commits to their own next available flight and says nothing about who sold the ticket.
Rule 19.A, Delta's Liability in the Event of Schedule Changes, Delays and Flight Cancellations. Read from the contract on 2026-07-29. Source
United Airlines
We hold no textUnited Airlines' contract page refuses automated requests, so we cannot verify what it currently says and will not paraphrase it.
Not yet transcribed. Source
Southwest Airlines
Ask for the refundSouthwest Airlines' contract only says it may rebook you, so there is no seat to demand — but it names a refund as your remedy.
Section 9.b(1)(i). Read from the contract on 2026-07-29. Source
B6 also file departures from BOS. We have not transcribed their Conditions of Carriage, so this page says nothing about what they promise rather than guessing.
Get the exact clause and a script to read themThe federal floor, underneath any contract
Statutory minimums, so no airline's contract and no agency's terms can go below them. They follow your itinerary rather than BOS, so each one is set out in full on its own tool:
How BOS compares with airports of its size
A late-departure rate means little on its own, so these are the airports sitting immediately either side of BOS on the same table. Each figure is the share of departures leaving more than fifteen minutes behind schedule, from the same Department of Transportation filing.
Which airlines run late out of BOS
Departures from BOS as filed with the US Department of Transportation, worst first. Only carriers with at least 300 departures in the month appear, so a carrier missing from this table flies here too thinly to measure fairly rather than perfectly.
| Airline | Departures | Over 15 min late | Carrier delay + late-arriving aircraft |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 647 | 29.5% | 84% |
| JetBlue Airways | 3,246 | 23.3% | 64.3% |
| American Airlines | 1,580 | 19.2% | 75.2% |
| United Airlines | 1,208 | 19.2% | 48.9% |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,392 | 18.5% | 64.8% |
The last column is the share of filed delay minutes coded as carrier delay or late-arriving aircraft, as opposed to extreme weather or air traffic control. It records how the minutes were filed, not who was at fault. Each airline guide carries that carrier's national record; the accountability index sets out why late inbound aircraft is grouped with carrier delay, and publishes the whole table as a downloadable file.
Figures cover May 2026, a single reporting month, from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics On-Time Performance database. Retrieved 2026-07-28. Reporting under 14 CFR part 234 covers domestic US scheduled service only, so no international route appears — including anything to or from Mexico.
Airlines based at BOS
Carriers based here, which usually means more non-stops and more daily frequencies to fall back on if something goes wrong.
Routes through BOS
Flying from Boston
Stuck on hold?
Talk to an independent agent instead
Airline phone queues and chatbots are where a rebooking stalls. Our agents work these routes daily and will look at what is actually available, walk through the letter you are about to send, and tell you what a desk agent will and will not do. We are not the airline and we do not file claims for you — the templates above are yours to send.
FAQ
BOS — common questions
Terminals, transfers and getting into the city.
How do I get from Boston Logan to downtown?
The Silver Line bus is free from the terminals and reaches South Station in fifteen to twenty-five minutes, running in a dedicated tunnel for much of the way. The Blue Line subway is also cheap but needs a shuttle bus from the terminal first. A taxi is quick outside peak hours given the short distance, though the harbour tunnels can add considerable time at rush hour.
Are Boston Logan terminals connected airside?
Only partly. Terminals C and E are joined by an airside walkway, so that connection can be made without leaving security. Other terminal combinations generally require exiting, taking the free shuttle bus around the loop road and clearing security again. Check which terminals your two flights use before accepting a short connection.
How early should I arrive at Boston Logan?
For a domestic flight, the usual two hours is reasonable; for international from Terminal E, three is safer, particularly in the morning bank. Add time in winter, when weather disruption is more common here than at most large US airports, and add more if you are arriving during the afternoon peak when the tunnels into the airport back up.
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