Greater Boston Suburbs

Logan Airports new consolidated car rental facility is now open.

The trend is not a bad one, providing several advantages for larger airports where it is necessary for the car rental to not be directly attached to the terminals. Traditionally, each car rental company would have a shuttle bus to their nearby car rental complex housing the service desks and car lots. By consolidating all rental companies to a single central building, the individual car company shuttle buses are consolidated into a single bus line which shuttles all travelers between the terminals and the facility. This not only greatly reduces roadside traffic at the airport, it reduces waiting time for the individual bus because, in principle at least, the single consolidated bus line can run more frequently.

Other advantages include making car return easier because all returns occur in the same basic place. Finally, consolidations among car rental companies and even sharing resources, can be done more easily. For example, some rental companies choose to close their desk at an earlier time and contract with a nearby agency to handle late arrivals. This is a snap when both companies are in the same building.

Finally, for travelers there is an advantage in that if they have a problem with their planned car rental company, they can simply walk over to the next agency and ask if they have cars. Most car rental companies will place a sign at the desk indicating CARS AVAILABLE if they are accepting walk up customers.

So Kudos once again to Massport for continuing to upgrade the roadside facilities at Boston's Logan Internatonal Airport. The only loser here is users of Mass Transit (ie - the MBTA) who now must stop at the rental car facility and wait for several minutes before being dropped at their terminal.