Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services raised its long-term rating and underlying rating (SPUR) to ‘AA’ from ‘AA-’ on the Massachusetts Port Authority’s (Massport or the authority) existing parity revenue bonds. At the same time, Standard & Poor’s assigned its ‘AA’ long-term rating to Massport’s approximately $114.6 million series 2015A revenue bonds and $74.3 million series 2015B revenue bonds. Finally, Standard & Poor’s affirmed its ‘AAA/A-1+’ rating on the series 2008-A and 2010-D bonds, based on the application of the low-correlation joint criteria using the authority’s ‘AA’ SPUR and the financial strength implied by the rating on of the bank providing the direct-pay letter of credit (LOC). The outlook, where applicable, is stable. “The raised rating reflects our view of Massport’s long history of strong debt service coverage of more than 2x for the past 10 years and a financial forecast that maintains coverage at approximately 2x or higher,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Todd Spence. “The rating is further supported by Massport’s strong origination and destination market, moderate debt levels, and moderate additional debt needed to fund its capital improvement plan,” Mr. Spence added. We believe the underlying strength of the Boston market, with its large origination and destination passenger base in a region with above-average incomes, travel-intensive economic base, attractiveness as a destination market, and limited competition from smaller surrounding airports, will continue to support the airport’s demand profile. Furthermore, the airport has good carrier diversity, in our view, with its largest carrier, jetBlue, at 27% of enplanements, followed by US Airways/American at a combined 22% and Delta at 14%.