Opinion: Logan Airport Wants a Voice for 40 Million Travelers a Year. Its Prize Has “No Monetary Value”

Boston’s Logan Airport is choosing its new announcement voice by public vote, and voting closes Wednesday. It’s a lovely idea, and the eight finalists are a delight. But the official rules say the prize has “no monetary value,” and the airport gets to use the winner’s recordings forever, anywhere, in any language. A voice that greets 40 million travelers a year is a job. Somebody should be paid to do it.

Let’s start with what Massport, the agency that runs Logan, got right. It wanted a voice with “local personality.” It asked residents to send in a 60-second video reading a script that includes the line “we’re wicked glad you’re here.” Nearly 6,000 people applied, according to Boston.com. That’s a city that wants to be heard, and I’m here for it.

Photo: Stephen Pierzchala, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

The eight finalists announced on KISS 108 last week sound like a casting director’s dream ensemble. There’s a Boston Public Schools teacher, a third-year law student, a boxer who tends bar on Cape Cod, a man who didn’t tell his fiancée he’d entered until he made the finals. Samantha Edwards summed up the brief better than any agency could: “We, the people of Boston, are unapologetically accented. We’re loving. We’re diverse. And I represent all of that. So here I am.” Christopher Donisi was just as honest about how he got there: “It was actually on a whim. My mother found this online and had me try out for it, and here I am.” Every one of them deserves a round of applause.

The prize is a title, and the title is the prize

Then you read the rules. The winner “will earn the title of ‘The Voice of Logan'” and “have the opportunity to record Public Service Announcements” for the terminals. Then comes the sentence the Voice of Logan FAQ prints in bold: “There is no monetary value associated with the Prize.”

The opportunity to record. For free. At an airport that more than 40 million people travel through each year, by WBUR’s count. A spokesperson told WBUR the winner will record greetings and information about concessions and ground transportation. That’s not a cameo. That’s the airport’s whole public voice, the one you’ll hear while hunting for a charging point at 6 a.m.

Image: Voice of Logan FAQ, voiceoflogan.com, October 27, 2026

If the airport needed a new logo, it wouldn’t run a contest where the prize is the honor of having designed it. Well, some places would. Designers have spent years explaining why that’s a bad deal, and voice actors are about to have the same conversation.

“In perpetuity,” the four scariest syllables in voice over

The pay is only half of it. Rule 10 of the official rules covers rights. The finalists’ and the winner’s audio and video recordings, and anything else from taking part in the contest or winning the prize, “shall be owned by the Sponsor.” Massport can edit it and use it “in any and all media now known or hereafter devised, in any language, throughout the world, in perpetuity,” for “trade, advertising, promotional, commercial, or any other purposes,” all “without further review, notice, approval, consideration, or compensation to the Winner.”

Read that again with a professional ear. Any media, including ones not invented yet. Any language, which is a fun phrase in a year when AI dubbing is everywhere. Forever. With no further approval and no further money. Working voice actors are told to treat a buyout like that as a red flag the size of the Green Monster. Here it’s the prize.

And here’s the part that made me laugh out loud. The rules are fierce about one thing: no AI. Entries must be “created solely by human effort,” and any use of “generative AI systems” for “voiceovers” or “deepfakes” means disqualification. Even the judging criteria ask for a voice that doesn’t sound “like a robot.” So Massport knows exactly what a real human voice is worth to travelers. It just doesn’t want to pay for one.

Here’s what a fair version looks like

I don’t want the contest cancelled. A public search for a hometown voice is a brilliant piece of civic fun, and it’s put a spotlight on voice work, which almost never gets one. Massport CEO Rich Davey said the goal is to “help everyone passing through Logan feel immediately at home.” Good. Keep the vote. Keep the KISS 108 segment. Keep “wicked glad.”

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Then pay the winner a real session fee for the recordings, the way you’d pay anyone hired for the job. Put a term on the usage, so the airport renews it after a few years, and the winner gets paid again if Logan still loves them. And drop “in any language,” because a hometown voice translated by a machine into Portuguese is nobody’s hometown voice.

The rules already leave the door open. The winner “will be required to execute any additional paperwork and/or agreements as required by the Sponsor.” So, to whoever wins on November 5: congratulations, truly. Before you sign that paperwork, show it to someone who does voice work for a living, or to the union. Ask about a fee and a term. The worst they can say is no, and you’ll still be the Voice of Logan.

To the other seven: you’ve got a voice that nearly 6,000 people tried to beat. That’s worth something too. Maybe start charging for it.

And to Massport, with love from the voice over world: you went looking for someone who sounds like home. Home pays its bills. Be wicked glad, and pay the voice.

Sources: This is an opinion piece. Facts and quotations from the Voice of Logan Official Rules (modified October 8 and October 20, 2026) and FAQ at voiceoflogan.com; Boston.com, Annie Jonas (October 21, 2026), including remarks from KISS 108; WBUR, Andrea Perdomo-Hernandez (September 14, 2026). Images: Massport, Voice of Logan contest website; photographs by Stephen Pierzchala and Alan Myles, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Lee este artículo en español: Opinión: El aeropuerto Logan busca una voz para 40 millones de viajeros al año. Su premio "no tiene valor monetario"

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