BOSTON (AP) — With peak holiday travel starting just after the government shutdown’s flight restrictions, hope for a moment of peace at an airport can feel like a wing and a prayer.

But quiet and worship are just what airport chapels have provided for decades to travelers and to the airport workers that many were originally designed for.

“I love seeing travel bags and workers’ outfits. It gives hope that you’re ministering to a need,” said the Rev. Brian Daley, one of the priests at Our Lady of the Airways at Boston’s Logan International Airport.

Built in the 1950s so that airport employees could attend Mass right in their sprawling workplace, it’s widely considered the first airport chapel in the United States. It’s also among the last to still function as a Catholic church instead of an interfaith space — though Muslim prayer rugs discreetly placed on the rear pews show it welcomes a variety of believers.

Midday on a Friday, a man rolling a carry-on suitcase prayed for a few minutes on a rug in the back of the brick-faced chapel on the cavernous ground floor of Terminal C. Donning reflective vests, a sprinkling of airline employees also darted in, knelt in the pews and hurried back to work after making the sign of the cross with blessed water.

“I come here almost every day to pray for a few minutes,” said Brian Babcock, a Southwest Airlines baggage handler who stopped by Boston’s chapel in his orange vest at the beginning of his shift. “It’s awesome that I have a chapel within walking distance of where I work.”

Workers’ chapels open at airports

The mid-20th-century impetus behind constructing Our Lady of the Airways — as well as the two other Catholic chapels that followed at New York’s JFK and Chicago’s O’Hare airports — stemmed from the church’s desire to reach the faithful at their workplaces.

Thousands of people worked at Logan, often on 12-hour shifts that could fall on Sundays or holy days when Catholics have an obligation to attend Mass, so Our Lady of the Airways was built to accommodate them.

Even when offering six weekend Masses, it became so popular it quickly outgrew its first space, so the current, larger chapel was built in 1965. Up front is the original metal statue of the Virgin Mary, her feet resting on a globe as three airplanes fly around it.

Amid nationwide declining religiosity and a shortage of priests, only one Mass is now celebrated at Our Lady — on Sundays, by the pastors responsible for a nearby parish.

In the past 30 years, most U.S. airport chapels have turned interfaith, with removable symbols of different religions — or none at all in newer meditation spaces. While it’s unclear how many people use the spaces across the country, much of the more religiously observant demand recently has come from Muslims.

Interfaith worship among taxiing planes

Printouts of the Muslim prayer timetable and the 2025 Catholic and Protestant Christmas season Mass schedule are tacked by the door of the chapel at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, where about 50,000 people work. Later established as an interfaith space, it still honors its Catholic roots.

As the holiday season approaches, the value of such chapels cannot be overstated, as they offer their unique blend of serenity and sacredness in the busy world of air travel.