For most of the Merrimack Valley this is a genuine decision rather than a default, and it usually gets made on habit. Here are the four things it should actually be made on: how far you are from each one, what you are flying, what parking costs if you drive yourself, and how much of your morning the airport itself will consume.
How far is each airport from the Merrimack Valley?
Far enough apart that geography decides it for the towns at either end and leaves the middle genuinely open.
| Town | To Logan | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Andover | About 35 min | About 25 mi down I-93 |
| Methuen | About 40 min | About 31 mi down I-93 |
| Lowell | About 40 min | About 29 mi |
| Salem, NH | About 45 min | About 35 mi down I-93 |
| Haverhill | About 45 to 50 min | About 35 mi |
| Nashua, NH | About 50 min | About 43 mi |
| Manchester, NH | About 65 to 70 min | About 55 mi |
Read the bottom of that table and the case makes itself. From Manchester and Nashua, Logan is an hour or close to it before traffic, and MHT is a fraction of that. From Andover and Lowell the maths runs the other way. Haverhill and Salem sit in the middle, which is where the other three factors start to matter.
How early to leave Methuen for a flight out of Logan
How much bigger is Logan, really?
About thirty times bigger by passenger volume, and that single fact explains almost every other difference between them. Massport reported that Logan served 43.2 million passengers in 2025. Manchester Boston Regional announced on February 11, 2026 that over 1.38 million passengers flew in and out of MHT in 2025, an increase of almost 9 percent and its best year since 2019.
Scale buys you routes, frequency, and somewhere to be rebooked to when a flight cancels. It costs you queueing, walking, and a security line that behaves like a large airport's security line. Manchester is growing and it is still a small airport, which is exactly what people who use it like about it.
What does parking cost at each one?
This is the number that decides it for a lot of trips, and it is the one people forget to put in the comparison at all. A week in a garage is real money and it is money you spend whether or not the trip goes well.
| Airport | Published rate |
|---|---|
| Manchester Boston Regional, garage | $14 per day |
| Boston Logan, Economy Parking | $37 per day |
| Boston Logan, Terminal B garage | $10 for the first hour, up to $46 per day |
Run that over a week at Logan and the parking alone is often the larger share of what a round trip car service would have cost, which is the arithmetic almost nobody does before they drive themselves.
Source: Massport, Parking at Boston Logan
Which is easier to be collected from?
Manchester, and it is not close. Manchester is a much simpler airport to be collected from, and for riders north of Haverhill it is often the shorter run by a wide margin. One terminal, a short walk, and a kerb that is not competing with forty million other people a year.
Logan has four terminals, a separate limo stand for each, and a set of rules about where a commercial vehicle may and may not wait. It works perfectly well once you know it, and knowing it is the whole point. That is why we wrote it out terminal by terminal.
How Logan pickup actually works, terminal by terminal
So when should you pick which?
| If this is true | Fly from |
|---|---|
| You live in Manchester, Nashua or Salem NH | Manchester, when the route exists |
| You are flying international | Logan |
| You are connecting to a long haul | Logan |
| You need an early flight and hate a 4am start | Manchester |
| You are parking for a week | Manchester on cost, by a wide margin |
| You need frequency, or a rebooking option if it cancels | Logan |
| You live in Andover, Lowell or Boston | Logan |
| You are traveling with a group and bags | Whichever has the route, then book one vehicle |
One thing worth saying plainly: the difference in drive time matters less when somebody else is driving. If the reason Logan feels far is the I-93 stretch at five in the morning, that is the part a car service removes, and the airport choice goes back to being about the flight.
Do you run to both?
Both, in both directions, along with Hanscom Field and the private aviation terminals. Flight tracking runs on every airport transfer either way, and the quote is agreed in writing before you book. Tell us the airport, the flight number and the pickup address and the rest is arithmetic we do rather than arithmetic you do.
Sources
- Manchester Boston Regional Airport, Record breaking cargo volumes and strong passenger growth drive MHT's best year since the pandemic. February 11, 2026.
- Massachusetts Port Authority, Massport Year in Review 2025. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
- Manchester Boston Regional Airport, Parking information. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
- Massachusetts Port Authority, Parking at Boston Logan. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
Published August 4, 2026. Last updated August 4, 2026. We revisit these pages whenever the airport, the road or the regulation changes, and the date above moves with them.
