October 2026      AirportImprovement.com
“From a construction standpoint, the 
project presented an equally challenging 
balancing act,” says DeCesare. 
The imposing 650-foot-long deck/pier 
points east, with 450 feet of it extending 
over a section of Boston Harbor called 
Winthrop Inlet. The easternmost edge 
of the deck is about 1,500 feet from 
Coughlin Park, a near point on the 
opposite side of the inlet. The section 
built on land, where the new EMAS bed 
abuts the runway, is 350 feet wide, but 
the portion over water narrows to 306 
feet. The design provides ample safety 
for aircraft but reduced the number of 
piles needed to support the structure and 
decreased the environmental impacts of 
installing them, explains DeCesare. 
Crews drove 308 precast concrete 
piles down into bedrock, with 34 placed 
at precise angles to brace the structure. 
Concrete panels laid on top of cap beams 
form the floor of the deck. The concrete 
piles, which average about 120 feet 
long, were transported to the worksite 
via barge to streamline delivery and keep 
heavy vehicles off area roads. 
The deck is “pretty unique,” 
Dennechuck says. “People may equate 
it with a bridge deck, but it’s meant to 
support aircraft, so that’s the difference.” 
Construction required two 75-day 
runway closures. The first spanned 
September to December 2025. The 
second began Aug. 31, 2026, and is 
expected to last until November 2026. 
Some flights were rerouted during the 
closures. In the interim, BOS has used 
runway length and landing distance 
declarations to govern aircraft operations 
and meet FAA safety requirements. 
Fully 75% of the $110 million project 
is being funded by an FAA Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law Airport Infrastructure 
Grant and Airport Improvement Program 
grants. Airport capital funds are covering 
the remaining 25% of the cost.  
A similar deck structure was created 
for Runway 33L in 2012, when Massport 
completed a $63 million project to replace 
that runway’s original EMAS. At 470 feet 
long and 300 feet wide, its deck is slightly 
longer and of uniform width.   
Worcester Regional
While water is the constraining issue at 
BOS, steep slopes around the airfield 
are the challenge for ORH, its smaller 
commercial cousin about 50 miles to 
the west. Last year, ORH logged 30,310 
aircraft operations on its two runways, 
one of which requires EMAS beds on both 
ends.  
In 2024, Massport replaced the existing 
bed on the 29 (departure) end of Runway 
11-29 for $5.1 million, and did the same 
on the opposite end last year for $8.18 
million. Each project was funded at 90% 
by an FAA Bipartisan Infrastructure Law 
Airport Infrastructure Grant and Airport 
Improvement Program grants.  
Although the original beds installed 
in 2009 hadn’t completely “aged out,” 
Massport opted to replace them while 
the runway was already going to be shut 
down for repaving, grooving and lighting 
upgrades—work that would have required 
crews to pry up the existing EMAS 
anyway.   
The timing also allowed for 
reconfiguration to match ORH’s current 
airfield traffic. Thomas notes that EMAS 
beds are designed in part for the specific 
aircraft that use a particular runway, 
and fleet mixes change over time. Like 
many airports, ORH has accommodated 
larger aircraft during the past few years. 
In simplistic terms, bigger planes need 
bigger beds. 
As Thomas explains, “The first choice 
of the FAA is to see a 70-knot system 
installed. However, in many cases the 
runway safety area is not long enough 
to accommodate a full 70-knot EMAS. 
Under these situations the runway 
safety area is ‘filled’ with EMAS (install 
the largest bed possible) to maximum 
performance (arresting ability). The 
minimum performance EMAS the FAA will 
accept is 40 knots”—that is, the ability 
to safely stop an aircraft rolling into it at 
that speed—to provide the equivalent 
protection of a 1,000-foot-long runway 
safety area. As the fleet mix changes 
on a runway, “there may be a loss of 
performance because the aircraft got 
bigger,” he adds.
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