Boston Set To Overtake Miami As East Coast’s Third-Largest Gateway To Europe

Boston’s international connectivity continues to take off. 

International service at Boston’s Logan International Airport has more than doubled since 2012, and it is helping make Boston one of the country’s biggest gateways to Europe. The city is expected to move up a rank to become the East Coast’s third-largest gateway to Europe, Forbes reports. Miami would move to fourth. John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey are the top-ranked airports, respectively. 

The international momentum is fueled in part by Delta’s decision to make Boston its secondary Northeast transatlantic hub after its primary one at JFK. The carrier and its partners have added flights in recent years to Dublin; Amsterdam; Lisbon, Portugal; and Edinburgh, Scotland. It also plans to add a flight next year to Rome and beef up existing service to Paris and London.

Non-Delta carriers have also entered the fray. American Airlines is resuming a Boston-London flight next year, and Austrian Airlines announced Wednesday it will add service to Vienna, Austria, next summer by canceling Miami service and moving the plane to Boston. 

New flights may not immediately seem tied to real estate, but Boston developers and real estate analysts have said the increased international service have boosted the region’s profile to global investors this cycle. Boston ranked in the top five for the first half of 2019 in terms of overall inbound foreign investment to the U.S. and as one of the fastest-growing U.S. markets where foreign investors look to park capital, according to CBRE. 

"Once thought a liability because of expansion obstacles, our primary airport’s proximity to the regional core is now a unique and significant competitive advantage," Perry Director of Intelligence Brendan Carroll said. "Direct air service to many of the world's most economically important cities is less than a 10-minute drive from more than 100M SF of commercial inventory."