Meh. The new tunnel is only better than the nightmare of the Big Dig, IMO. And parking at Logan still costs a ridiculous amount of money. Again, I do use Logan Express pretty often, which is a big help, but nothing’s perfect. Getting to Manchester feels weird (the Airport’s way the Hell off in some residential back yard), but it’s not hard to navigate at all.
You think that’s bad? I was looking for the cheapest flight from Vancouver to Toronto and ended up having to take a taxi four thousand miles from the “Ontario Airport” in Orange County. Fuckers.
And then there was the poor woman who was planning an Australian vacation and ended up in Cape Breton, all because of a misplaced Y.
That behavior is not exclusive to New Hampshire.
No income tax, no sales tax…I think it may be the lowest overall except for Wyoming??
Exactly! I love it and am always concerned that it will start getting overcrowded and congested.
–gigi, NH/VT flatlander
Neither is referring to crappy drivers to the south as Massholes.
I fly into the area twice a year to visit friends who live in a suburb of Boston, maybe 15 minutes from Logan when traffic is decent. My husband and I still prefer to fly into Manchester, maybe 45 minutes from where our friends live. Logan’s United terminal sucks - the amenities past security are poor (I’m spoiled by O’Hare and Midway, admittedly) and the lines to get through security are so long that I don’t want to leave once I’m through it. Plus at Logan, you have to hop on some shuttle and drive a ways to get to the rental car place - yes, we drive quite successfully in Boston - while at Manchester, you walk across the car/taxi lanes to a very close parking garage, and presto, all of the car rental places are inside. And they have free wireless service, at such a tiny airport!
I mean… Manchester sucks! Screw them, go to Logan!
I am especially sensitive to this when friends or family fly in. People who aren’t familiar with Boston tend to find Logan disturbing. The place is hopelessly infested with negativity and hostility. It just isn’t a good place to begin or end a trip. I noticed it myself the first few times I visited Boston but so many visitors have commented on Logan negatively that I think there must be a rather general problem. I always try to talk people out of flying there. I am not sure it is anything they can even remodel around. It is just one of those places that evil congregates to and then breeds and spreads.
Now Manchester and Providence are great. All hail new peripheral airports.
Agreed. It’s number one on my list of thoroughly-unpleasant airports, with Heathrow being a safe second place.
I visit my parents in Mass. frequently, and for the last 15 years have used T.F. Green (Providence) exclusively. Easy to get in and out of; plenty of close (and cheap) parking; usually cheaper to fly to and Southwest has direct flights from Nashville.
So y’all just stay the hell away from it. I hear that there Worcester airport is mighty nice.
Theft is the sincerest form of flattery.
Robot Arm
Those are precisely my feelings on this matter. Is New Hampshire doing this out of the goodness of their heart by helping its neighbor to the South relieve the horrendously overburdened Logan Airport? No - they are in this to make a buck. Hypocrisy is alive and well in New Hampshire. As their state motto proclaims “Live Free by sponging off others Or Die”.
Other posters have disagreed with my view that Manchester, New Hampshire is small time, rustic, etc. Well, if it is a world class city, a bustling metropolis of enterprise, a cultural Mecca, etc., then why the fuck do they need to “hitch a ride” on Boston’s fame? It no doubt dawned on these “name-stealers” that if travellers said they were flying to Manchester Airport, the usual repsonse would be “Where the Hell is that”?
Shagnasty
You mentioned that
So, you think we Bostonians are rather negative and ill-tempered? Well, I’m glad I had a chance to see Holliston hospitality at work when your first 2 words in this thread (aimed directly at me) were
It’s good to see that the awful, discourteous manners of Bostonians hasn’t tainted the good nature of the citizens in the Bay State suburbs. 
Somebody’s already mentioned the fact that there’s two Manchester airports. I’m wondering if at least part of the decision-making was a realisation that they’re by far the smaller of the two, and that there’s plenty of potential for confusion, doubly so if they ever want to become ‘xyz International Airport’.
Ah yes, I remember back in the days when John Sununu was governor, New Hampshire legalized the sale of fireworks one summer.
Not the use of fireworks, however, just the sale. Once you bought them, you had to take them out of NH. Problem was, fireworks were prohibited in Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont. When the point was brought up that NH was trying to profit by encouraging people to break the law in neighboring states, Sununu’s response was, “that’s their problem.”
Manchester is a fine little airport if you’re going to Florida or Baltimore. Anywhere else, though, and you’ll be changing planes somewhere when you could have had a nonstop from Logan, and on a full-size jet too. Except for Southwest and the rare USAirways flight, everything there is on a regional jet or turboprop, appropriate to the market size.
Also, if your Manchester flight gets cancelled, you’ll be waiting half a day for the next one to your destination. Baggage claim is no faster at MHT than at BOS, either, despite its compactness, as I can testify from my latest pickup there.
Parking is a lot cheaper there, though. Gotta give 'em that.
I should point out that Southwest picked MHT and PVD to serve the Boston market when Logan was still ground-constrained, by the absence of the Ted Williams Tunnel and the terminal-reconstruction project. JetBlue didn’t have to consider those issues when they came here, since those projects were completed by then, and they rightly concluded BOS was more accessible to far more people. JetBlue is doing very well at Logan, while SWA has to advertise heavily in the Boston media market to prop up its service to less-convenient outlying airports they remain committed to.
I think I heard on NECN last night that Worcester got the OK to add “Boston” to its name, the reason being that out of all the other regional airports (excluding Hanscom), Worcester’s the only in actually in MA, it’s in an up-and-coming area, etc.
No word about Manchester. And I had no idea T.F. Green wanted to change its name. Hell, whenever I hear the name, I automatically think, “Oh, Providence – that’s only 40 minutes away.” But that’s only because I’m from around here 
I have never once even considered flying out of Worcester, and don’t even know where the airport is. What’s it like? Who services that airport?
Yeah, I totally agree with the OP, because nobody in the Boston suburbs ever ever ever sponges off of Boston’s good name, like saying they’re “minutes from the city!” or “easy access to Boston!” without actually having to live there or anything. No, nobody does that in the suburbs.
Also I agree with the OP because we all know what the world needs is more arbitrary ways to divide ourselves by painting lines in the sand and saying “it’s okay if people on our side of the line do something, but not on that side, because the people on their side are sponging, money-grubbing hypocrites while ours are hard-working enterprising citizens.”
Vienna-Bratislava airport? How hilarious. I’d like to chime in and add another Ryanair ARAGGHHHH moment. WHen I was living in Flanders a family member was coming to visit-- I didn’t have a car so I told them to fly into Brussels-- hey, 15 minutes on the train from here. Then the very morning he arrived he mentioned “so flight XX into Brussels-Charleroi”. Sure ain’t Brussels, let me tell you. Aiaghh! So a 2 1/2 hour train and bus ride later. . .