Boston Logan’s New Voice Is a Pipefitter. Chris Donisi Says People Told Him for Years to Do Voice Work
Massport ran a statewide search for a Boston accent to greet travellers at Logan International Airport. More than 6,000 people auditioned. The winner is Chris Donisi, a 43-year-old HVAC pipefitter who’d been told for years he should do voice work, and who’s keeping his day job.
Boston Logan has a voice, and it belongs to a pipefitter. Chris Donisi, who grew up in East Arlington and now lives in Burlington, was named the first ever “Voice of Logan” on Thursday morning, 5 November. He’ll record greetings and announcements for the airport, starting next week, in time for the holiday rush.
The news went out live on Kiss 108’s “Billy and Lisa in the Morning Show”, and Massport’s chief executive, Rich Davey, had his line ready. He called Donisi “a pipefitter with pipes.”
It’s a lovely story, and it’s also a voice casting story. A public body wrote a script, opened auditions to anyone in Massachusetts with a phone, and let the public pick the voice of an airport that, by the Boston Globe’s count, sees 43 million travellers a year. Voice Over Herald argued on 27 October that the job deserved a fee. Here’s how it ended, and what it tells people who voice for a living.
Hear the voice
Donisi’s audition opens with the welcome travellers will soon hear for themselves. CBS Boston’s report starts with it, before the anchors take over.
Hear the voice: Chris Donisi’s winning audition, then CBS Boston’s report on the result. Video: CBS Boston, on YouTube
He reads it low and easy, a natural baritone with the accent left exactly where it lives. That was the whole brief. Massport’s script, the Globe says, was so full of local touchstones it “could have been written by AI”: lobster rolls by the harbour, a queue for cannoli in the North End, salt air in Gloucester, a pilgrimage to the Green Monster. It signs off with “we’re wicked glad you’re here.”
From 6,000 tapes to one voice
The search opened in September and, as these things do, it got away from everyone. Jimmy Fallon talked about it on “The Tonight Show”. Ben Affleck read the script on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Davey told WBUR he was “shocked” at the national attention.
Massport says more than 6,000 people sent in videos of themselves reading the script. A shortlist of eight finalists went to a public vote, and when roughly 35,000 votes were counted, Donisi was the favourite. Until now, the Globe notes, Logan’s greetings were read anonymously or by local officeholders, and neither the mayor nor the governor grew up in Boston.
Davey’s case for a local voice was simple. “We’ve got these great accents that are maybe unusual for other parts of the country,” he told WBUR. “But we have a lot of pride in that.”
Image: Massport, from Chris Donisi's audition video
“People have been telling me for years”
Donisi isn’t a voice actor, and he’s the first to say so. He’s been a pipefitter for 22 years, he’s married with a four-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son, and his voice dropped when he was about 11 or 12. People have been remarking on it ever since.
VoiceEditSuiteAuto Clean Up now learns you.Your breath, your pace and every fix you make, so each file comes back sounding like you edited it yourself.See how it worksLearns from numbers, never your audio. Never used to train AI.“I’ve never thought about really doing any type of voicework. People have been telling me for years,” he told CBS. In a statement that Massport also posts on its winner page, he put it like this: “And everyone has always told me to do voice work so when I seen this I said what a perfect opportunity to give it a shot and how perfect it would be in my home town at Logan.”
It was his mum who spotted the contest. “You always gotta follow your dreams, but you also gotta follow your mother’s dreams,” he told the Kiss 108 hosts. He didn’t think he stood a chance. He told WBUR, “But when I heard how many people were auditioning, I didn’t think it was in my realm. But here I am today.”
Asked on “CBS Mornings” whether he’d laid the accent on extra thick for the contest, he answered in that same baritone: “It’s just how I flow.”
The speed of it is the part he keeps coming back to. “I applied. All of a sudden I’m in the final eight. Now I’m here,” he said. “It was just a wild, crazy ride that came in hot.” At the airport press conference he got emotional talking about his kids. “My daughter got to see me on TV for the first time ever and her face lit up,” he told reporters, according to CBS Boston.
The job, and what it pays
The Globe calls the Voice of Logan “an unpaid post.” The contest’s own FAQ was blunt about it: “There is no monetary value associated with the Prize.” Its official rules also give Massport the recordings to use “in perpetuity,” which is why this site ran an opinion piece asking the airport to pay the voice. Nothing in Thursday’s coverage says that’s changed.
What Davey did say is that the door’s open. He told WBUR that Donisi will start recording next week, ahead of the holiday travel season, and that he’s free to use his pipes for other voice work if he likes. Donisi, for his part, isn’t handing in his tools. “I’m overjoyed with it,” he said on Kiss 108. “I’m going to have some fun with it.”
Image: Massport's Voice of Logan page, screenshot taken 6 November 2026
What working voice actors can take from it
First, the obvious one. Brands keep asking for “real” and “local”, and this is what that looks like when they mean it. Massport didn’t want an announcer. It wanted someone who sounds like the city, and the public voted for exactly that. If you’ve got a regional accent you’ve been sanding off for national work, a campaign like this is a reminder that it can be the reason you’re booked.
Second, the contest model is catching on, and it comes with a cost. A public search costs the client very little and gets them chat show mentions. It also teaches them that a voice is a prize rather than a fee. The best answer from the professional side is the one this site made last month, politely: thank you for caring about voices, now please pay one.
Third, and it’s worth saying plainly: none of that is Donisi’s fault. He entered because his mum told him to, he read the script the way he talks, and 35,000 people liked what they heard. If you fly through Logan over the holidays and a pipefitter tells you you’re wicked welcome, he means it.
“I think it’s so cool. I’m so excited about that,” he told CBS Boston about hearing himself at Logan. “I’m sure there’s going to be some surprised faces, walking and hearing my voice. I’ll probably be one of them.”
Sources: Massport, Voice of Logan winner page and Chris Donisi’s audition video, voiceoflogan.com, and the contest’s official rules and FAQ as quoted by Voice Over Herald on 27 October 2026; The Boston Globe, Mark Shanahan, 5 November 2026; WBUR, Andrea Perdomo-Hernandez, 5 November 2026; CBS Boston, 5 November 2026, and its report on YouTube. Main image: Massport, from Chris Donisi’s audition video.
Lee este artículo en español: La nueva voz del aeropuerto Logan de Boston es un instalador de tuberías. Chris Donisi dice que llevaban años pidiéndole que hiciera locución
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