Skipping Logan Airport security lines now easier for some public transit users

Fresh off the success of a similar program for some Logan Express bus riders, the Massachusetts Port Authority is now offering passengers who take a public ferry or water taxi to Logan Airport’s boat dock a ticket to skip the security line if they board a free shuttle to the hub’s terminals.

Massport launched an incentive at the start of May for Logan Express riders going from Back Bay Station to the airport—and ridership on the Massport bus route quickly bounced. Ridership more than doubled from May through August, to 98,000, compared with the same four-month period in 2018, Massport said. (It didn’t hurt that the agency also cut the price of a Back Bay-Logan ticket to $3 from $7.50, and made the return trip free.)

The so-called Ticket to Skip incentive—in the form of an orange voucher that allows priority entry to Logan security lines—was thought to be the first of its kind in the United States, and the ferry ticket setup is likely the first of its kind too.

Both moves, of course, are designed to alleviate congestion at the airport, and also come amid numerous infrastructural changes at Logan, including an expansion of Terminal E and roadwork between terminals B and C.

It’s all in anticipation of a drastic jump in passengers: Some 47.6 million a year are expected to pass through Logan by 2024, Massport says, a 17 percent increase from 2018.