Gotham Air: Manhattan to JFK in 6 minutes for $99

http://www.gothamair.com/

by acak • 12 years ago

358 211 12 years ago

gothamair.com

tptacek• 12 years ago

This can't possibly be real.

lanstein• 12 years ago

Based on the prices here: http://www.heliny.com/

it's plausible, since only the first ride is $99. Travel time is correct too:

http://www.newyorkhelicopter.com/airport-transfers/

fishnchips• 12 years ago

What a wonderful and completely non-scalable solution to the question of public transportation.

lnanek2• 12 years ago

What makes you think it won't scale? Seems to mesh well with all the PR about drones all over the place lately. I could easily see the helicopters being replaced with remote piloted drone taxis within a decade.

robbrown451• 12 years ago

It's noisy and expensive. Helicopters should have to pay a noise pollution tax, in my opinion.

raverbashing• 12 years ago

I could easily see the helicopters being replaced with remote piloted drone taxis within a decade.

You have no idea what you're talking about

It's one thing for Amazon to put your stuff in there, another, for a drone carrying people fly next to an airport

frenchman_in_ny3• 12 years ago

"Promotion rate flights are for first time flyers only and limted to a single use. Other terms and conditions may apply."

So what's the standard rate?

prawn• 12 years ago

$199-219 depending on airport and time of day.

pyrophane• 12 years ago

Some more details: http://nypost.com/2015/01/20/why-take-a-taxi-to-the-airport-...

Gotham’s going rates are higher than the initial $99. After the introductory flight, prices will range from $199 to $219, depending on the time of day and the airport, Hayes said, adding that the choppers will depart from three Gotham Air terminals in Manhattan.

Animats2• 12 years ago

Footnote on ad: "Promotion rate flights are for first time flyers only and limted to a single use. Other terms and conditions may apply."

HeliNY, for which they are a reseller, charges $925 for that trip as a charter. Aircraft capacity is 5 (maybe 6). So the regular price, assuming they make you wait for a full helicopter, is probably about $200.

mikeash11• 12 years ago

Seems like blatant false advertising to have "$99" in big text and nothing but an asterisk to indicate that this is a rate you're allowed to have exactly once ever.

nerfhammer4• 12 years ago

given that they're a reseller there probably is no aircraft with their livery as pictured either

dragonwriter• 12 years ago

Seems like blatant false advertising to have "$99" in big text and nothing but an asterisk to indicate that this is a rate you're allowed to have exactly once ever.

All kinds of services advertise one-time introductory rates that way.

cobblestone• 12 years ago

Apps don't even exist. Right now they're just collecting email addresses, gaining buzz, and I highly doubt they have any capacity to actually fulfill any of it.

azinman23• 12 years ago

Lame.

Now it really is for the 1%. At $99 I can imagine a family wanting to take one to reduce stress and complexities.

How long until drones can take us? :)

mikeash11• 12 years ago

I'd take my family on it in a heartbeat if it was $99 for the whole helicopter, like a taxi. But it's certainly $99/person, so taking a family would get pricey. And much worse after the first ride!

bdamm• 12 years ago

Drones that can carry people are likely to be more expensive than existing aircraft that can carry people.

Why? Because they have to meet the same safety requirements as existing aircraft, but carry enough electronics to fly the aircraft as autonomously and as safely as a human pilot, which I think is actually a substantial hurdle to overcome.

ryguytilidie• 12 years ago

I feel like complaining that you can't take your kids on a helicopter ride to "reduce stress and complexities" kind of puts you exactly in that 1%...

azinman23• 12 years ago

Why all the down votes when the company is doing a bait and switch with their pricing?

larrys3• 12 years ago

"Aircraft capacity is 5 (maybe 6)."

Another issue is if they are flying to JFK the idea is you are taking a flight obviously out of JFK. So given that helis are small and weight sensitive I wonder if the app collects that info and/or what the baggage restrictions are.

fnordfnordfnord2• 12 years ago

The pictured helicopter looks like a 407, useful load ~2200 lbs. http://bellhelicopter.com/en_US/Commercial/Bell407GX/1296721...

ilzmastr• 12 years ago

Slightly cheaper than cab fare+tip from Manhattan to Newark, but ~40 mins faster. Then again you still have to get through financial district to the helipad...

Still not as good as having a private helicopter. I hear NYC to PHL is 30 mins by heli.

guan• 12 years ago

UberX from Manhattan to Newark is $65 flat fare, no tip required.

mathattack2• 12 years ago

The issue isn't price, it's time saved.

qq66• 12 years ago

I hear NYC to PHL is 30 mins by heli.

Doubtful, unless you're in some kind of military helicopter. NYC to PHL is close to 100 miles, no helicopters go 200 miles per hour.

spiritplumber2• 12 years ago

Unfortunately it requires me to get on something that is kept aloft by an extremely complex collection of moving parts that twist, wibble and vibrate. And doesn't glide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9c4I3nRIFA (Explained by the same guy who explains the differential in that old instructional video)

frenchman_in_ny3• 12 years ago

"And doesn't glide" -- as opposed to, say, autorotation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2a9H8Xw8Mo

spiritplumber2• 12 years ago

I've seen people do autorotation landings (only for training, fortunately) and... I'll take something with wings, thanks :)

aqme28• 12 years ago

I'm curious, is it more or less dangerous than driving a car over the same distance?

ghaff5• 12 years ago

It would seem that a helicopter is significantly more dangerous: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...

That would be my intuition as well--especially for that route as traffic will frequently make driving pretty slow (and, indeed, that's sort of the point of the service).

mikeash11• 12 years ago

I don't have the statistics at hand, but I'd say it's likely more. The remarkable safety of airliners doesn't extend to smaller aircraft.

PhantomGremlin3• 12 years ago

That's a great video, and you're right about the "extremely complex ..." stuff.

But helicopter crashes are frequently survivable. Here's some anecdotal evidence. Long ago I knew an ex South Vietnamese Army guy who crashed two helicopters in a single day during the war. Also my old boss, Annapolis grad, once mentioned crashing a helicopter somewhere in Texas. Even knowing that, I still flew with him in his Beech and in his Aeronca Air Knocker. The younger we are, the more we believe in our own invulnerability and good luck.

Having said all that, I share your trepidation. Fortunately, today's commercial jets are orders of magnitude safer (as measured by actual crash statistics) than helicopters and general aviation fixed wing aircraft.

jasonjei• 12 years ago

Are there any security risks? Aside from air safety risks? I just wonder if body scanning/x-ray/metal detector is required for this sort of thing.

frenchman_in_ny3• 12 years ago

Generally no; you'll go through the usual security check prior to boarding a flight at the airport, however.

drewmate• 12 years ago

So how does this work? Does the helicopter pick you up from your office building? Or do you have to go to their central terminal?

krschultz• 12 years ago

There are at least 3 heliports in the city. There is one no the East River at 34th ST, and one on the Hudson at 30th st. There is also one in battery park that I think is more of a tourist flight spot.

I live near the 34th street one, and I am amazed by the number of people that use them during rush hour on weekdays. There might be 50-100 people that commute by helicopter into the city each day at that heliport. That's certainly more than I would have expected.

epc2• 12 years ago

For Battery Park you're thinking of the Wall St heliport (JRB). Mostly Wall Street types but there's also several tourist flights. The noise from this heliport on the Brooklyn side can be unbelievable in the summer.

The 30th St heliport is due to close...at some point due to its location in Hudson River Park but I suspect there will be some sort of negotiated solution to relocate it.

mathattack2• 12 years ago

This is an unfortunate sign that Manhattan is turning into Sao Paulo or Hong Kong.

ghaff5• 12 years ago

Nothing new about it. Way back when, Pan Am offered "free" helicopter service into the city for first class passengers. (Originally to the heliport on the roof of the Pan Am building until that was banned following an accident.)

JFK is a ways out. Newark is much less of a big deal because there's good train service between that airport and Penn Station.

nerfhammer4• 12 years ago

Helicopter shuttle services have been running on and off in NY since the 1950's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Airways

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Helicopter

nhayden• 12 years ago

You never need to share the car strangers

Typo here, just FYI

kuny• 12 years ago

also, copyright year 2014 and "limted to a single use" wants an i

droob• 12 years ago

The big weird variable time buffer required at the airport would seem to wipe out the time you gain, right? Or, at least, what's an extra half hour when you're on the hook for two hours of security and waiting, followed by a couple-hour flight, followed by another hour of transit on the arrival side?

silencio• 12 years ago

I expect someone who'd use this kind of service on a regular basis would have TSA Precheck/CLEAR and priority boarding/!coach seats, possibly reducing a significant amount of waiting before the flight. This isn't just about reducing the time spent in traffic either, nor does it say anything about the possibility of something similar for travel needs on the other end. And well, flights tend to be unavoidable or the fastest way possible to go somewhere, so...

josu• 12 years ago

From the nostromo's comment:

The biggest selling point was not only the short commute, but that you went through security at the helipad very quickly, rather than waiting at the airport.

dogma11387• 12 years ago

since the helipad is usually inside the airports flight area you are already per-cleared at the embarkation point so as long as the helicopter makes no stops on the way you won't have to do anything at the airport.

This is very similar to how private charters operate at commercial airports they have their own security checks which are usually much much more lax than the commercial passengers.

Some airport shuttles (in some countries) also allow you to do a security precheck and to turn in your luggage prior to even reaching the airport.

nostromo• 12 years ago

A service like this existed until a few years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Helicopter

It took just a few minutes to get to EWR or JFK and cost $159. The biggest selling point was not only the short commute, but that you went through security at the helipad very quickly, rather than waiting at the airport.

I believe they were a victim of the financial crisis and died around that time.

dannylandau• 12 years ago

Maybe by facilitating the service via an app will make the difference here. A much bigger audience and probably a lot easier to book.

nerfhammer4• 12 years ago

Possibly by having the service on-demand they have fewer liabilities so you don't go out of business if demand drops off, which is what did in US Helicopter. Helicopters as a Service.

On the other hand if they're too successful maybe the company they're chartering from could decide to offer service themselves and cut them out

ovb• 12 years ago

And before US Helicopter, there was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Airways

New York Airways had one notable accident: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/may-16-1977-hel...

Alex39172• 12 years ago

The NYC helicopters in general have a terrible track record. There are constantly articles about them crashing into the rivers, into buildings, into other helicopters or planes, etc. Someone else in the thread posted an article about how the overall helicopter fatality rate compares with the car fatality rate, and while it's hard to say for certain, it doesn't look promising.

dankohn12• 12 years ago

I did the $159 a few years ago before they shut down. My flight out of JFK was delayed by 2 hours, making the expense seem kind of ridiculous. Also, my flight was in a different terminal, meaning I had to leave and then re-enter security, which also kills the time advantage.

orbitur• 12 years ago

I don't know. I think I'd pay $160 to not sit in traffic for 3 hours, just to wait in an airport/go through security for another 2. That means extra time to get things done before you fly out.

15thandwhatever• 12 years ago

I thought it was pretty clear on their site that they offered the "security transfer" only at certain terminals, for certain airlines. For instance, if you were flying Continental out of Newark, it was great to come in via USH and not have to deal with infrequent flyers at security.

bengali3• 12 years ago

Yes, only marketing improvements here.

OoTheNigerian• 12 years ago

The Gotham Air app will revolutionize the way you travel. Our iOS and Android based technology will allow you to enjoy crowd sourced helicopter flights when you want. Call your friends or meet some new ones on board. A beautiful new Bell 407 helicopter is just minutes away!

Is it really hard to describe services in plain English?

BTW, it's a good idea. Lagos used to have one before.

sgustard• 12 years ago

I find the phrase "crowd sourced helicopter flights" strangely terrifying.

akyu• 12 years ago

fleet of Teslas

These guys are on top of their buzz game

tmalsburg2• 12 years ago

What is this fleet of Teslas doing on days with good weather? Either they'll have too much capacity when the weather is good or too little when the weather is bad.

mikeash11• 12 years ago

Driving for Uber, maybe.

italophil• 12 years ago

I hope this ends better than New York Airways, which offered similar services in '60-'70 and went bankrupt after two deadly accidents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Airways

slantedview• 12 years ago

A fleet of Teslas? Not that this isn't a cool idea, but it's still a joke, right?

lisper• 12 years ago

Something else to consider: baggage capacity. Helicopters operate close to their weight limits when fully loaded. You may fit, but your bags may not.

johnloeber• 12 years ago

Looks awesome. Taking an Uber or Public Transit from Manhattan to JFK has usually been a pretty severe time-cost, while Ubers and Taxis are also not too cheap.

This service might actually be worth it, from an economic point of view -- it probably cuts between 30 and 60 minutes commute time depending on the time of the day, and it also cuts another 30-45 minutes of security time. Depending on how much you value your time, this could be worth it. Doesn't seem too scalable though, which is unfortunate.

Given there are many people who value their time quite highly in Manhattan, I expect seats on the helicopter(s) will actually be sold out most of time.

(One more aspect to consider in the utility-calculation: what's the probability the helicopter crashes?)

jrockway2• 12 years ago

Weird. I looked at prices for helicopter charter recently, and it's usually $1000 to JFK/LGA/EWR from downtown.

imjk• 12 years ago

This is a one-time promotional rate for first-time customers and requires 4 passengers.

cbhl• 12 years ago

The service splits a helicopter five ways, so about $200/person...

goeric• 12 years ago

Surf Air for helicopters!

dogma11387• 12 years ago

For 99$ this is something that doesn't even require you to be some hedge fund brat to use. Not sure what the current cab prices are these days, but i remember paying about i think 80$ for a cab from JFK to central Manhattan. You can get it a bit cheaper if you book a car service instead of grabbing a cab from the airport but it's still not sums that would break anyone's pocket.

A taxi from central London to Heathrow can easily cost 90 quid unless it's a booked minicab which then drops it to 40-60 quid, you can take the heathrow express but thats also 40 quid both ways + additional fare to get to paddington.

I would love to use this service both for the speed and the experience (unlike the scenic traffic jam you get otherwise) just to get a sky high tour of NYC...

Too bad it's never gonna scale, there probably will be huge limits on the amount of luggage you can take (which will make it either very expensive or completely unusable for international travelers) and the costs are going to go trough the roof quick enough.

ghaff5• 12 years ago

OT but I've never really understood the Heathrow Express economics--and I've asked Londoners and they've never been able to give a good explanation either. I take the Piccadilly line in and I've never understood the justification for taking the Express. Maybe if I were staying right around Paddington but not if I'm going to have to take the tube or a taxi anyway.

yuliyp• 12 years ago

The exchange rate from your money to Other People's Money is very significant

mason552• 12 years ago

I only go to London on business travel so price isn't as big of a deal but I take the Heathrow Express for time purposes. In morning traffic after the red eye from NYC it's much faster than either a cab or the tube.

dogma11387• 12 years ago

I live these days 15 min of lazy walk from Paddington and i prefer the express over a car due to the fact that it's much quicker.

There is the connect which is about 60-70% of the rate of the Express but it tends not to run late at night, and every time there are any works done on the line it takes a back seat to the express.

The problem with the Piccadilly line is that it takes ages, it doesn't run late (service stops around 11pm and doesn't renew till about 5.30ish iirc) and it's the most delayed line of the tube system, especially the parts towards Heathrow. So many people don't take it, most people that do are young people that take it during the middle of the day since it's also when most of the low cost airliners operate.

I think that most people in London at this point are just used to paying the premium of living in London even tho at this point i don't really see a point for that. The salaries are double at least than pretty much anywhere else in the UK, but the cost of living is also at least as high.

robk2• 12 years ago

It's much cheaper with a Network Railcard - 22.40 roundtrip. With all HEX tickets, you can use them in any direction (i.e., it's two unlimited one ways basically) and the first is good for 3 days, the second "return" one good for 30 days, so I usually keep a few active for regular trips. 11.20 each isn't bad at all vs Uber if you're time sensitive and already nearish to Paddington.

nfoz• 12 years ago

For 99$ this is something that doesn't even require you to be some hedge fund brat to use. Not sure what the current cab prices are these days, but i remember paying about i think 80$ for a cab from JFK to central Manhattan. You can get it a bit cheaper if you book a car service instead of grabbing a cab from the airport but it's still not sums that would break anyone's pocket.

You can get to LGA via public transit for $2.50 (subway+bus). For JFK there's an extra $5.00 for the airtrain.

Technologists are the new "hedge fund brats". I agree it's not a huge price-tag given how awesome it sounds compared to the similarly-priced alternatives, but let's be careful when we talk about what might "break anyone's pocket."

dogma11387• 12 years ago

You can also get to Heathrow with a bus or the tube for 10 GBP, still most people either take a much more expensive train or book a car.

Getting to JFK in public transport might work for a domestic flight but i won't want to go trough NY's public transport with 2 full suit cases.

joshvm2• 12 years ago

Tube costs under a fiver (~hour). National express costs around a tenner (~half hour). If you take a non-booked taxi from an airport and it's not an emergency then you're a fool or rich, frankly.

$500+ a week (double that for the return) is a phenomenal amount of money to spend on commuting. If you value your time at $50 an hour and someone else is paying, then sure it may be worth it, but this won't scale simply because its impractically expensive for most people.

But I agree, $99 for a helicopter ride over New York is probably a lot cheaper than the experience companies.

dogma11387• 12 years ago

Well i look at it from a point of view that people who'll use this service will either be people who can expense it as a business expense (some one else pays) or people who cam to NY as tourist which means they've already dumped couple of 1000's of dollars at least on their experience.

If i would go to NY for fun i would consider this as part of the tour, if i go there on business as i usually do it would be quite hard for me to expense it not because of the price but because i would have to put a helicopter ride on the expense report which might raise more than a few eyebrows at work...

brentm• 12 years ago

Uber from lower Manhattan to JFK is ~$60. Most of the time it won't take more than 45 minutes. The 2 hours they are pushing here is likely talking driving in heavy traffic or taking public transportation.

spitfire• 12 years ago

Typo:

You never need to share the car strangers and we can....

crazygringo• 12 years ago

from Manhattan to JFK and Newark Liberty Airports cut the travel time from 2-hours to 6 minutes for about the same price as many black cars

A helicopter flight is cool, sure...

...but "2 hours" is complete nonsense. Even if traffic is terrible, you can always take LIRR+AirTrain from Penn Station to JFK for less than $15, and it's basically guaranteed to take 35 min or less, straight to your desired terminal. Heck, I took it this morning, and there was a new train every 10 min.

And most people are going to find it quicker to get to Penn St than to get to the heliport in the first place, so it doesn't even have an advantage there...

yahelc2• 12 years ago

35 minutes is a stretch. Starting at Penn Station, Google Maps has 52m as the minimum and 1h11m as the max.

And that's from Penn Station. Add the time it takes to get to Penn Station from where you're going, it can easily be between 1h30m and 2h. I did this trip yesterday, and from where I started in Soho until the airport, it was 1h45m.

lmm6• 12 years ago

Sure, but are you going to be able to get to the helipad any quicker than getting to Penn?

avree• 12 years ago

35 minutes or less? I've never managed to make the trek in less than an hour, regardless of what means of transit I employ.

colinbartlett• 12 years ago

I fly regularly out of JFK and live in Manhattan. I always take a cab out of convenience and it almost always takes less than an hour. But it's consitently the worst hour of my trip. I dread that leg more than the flight, the airport, anything.

This is absolutely a service I would use, provided it's $100 per person max. If it turns out to be $300 after the intro period then forget about it.

nness• 12 years ago

Perhaps unrelated, but the gothamair.com is blocked by McAfee's proxy (corporate environments, sigh). Medium risk of phishing is the justification given...

coin• 12 years ago

Questionable website, clicking on "FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS" on an iPad (Safari iOS 8.1.2) does nothing. Hopefully the helicopters are better.

mtbcoder• 12 years ago

I noticed that as well. I also received a blank page until a few refreshes eventually loaded the page. Oddly, all the HTML of the site is loaded via Javascript.

shittyanalogy• 12 years ago

Y'all are falling for it, this isn't an existing service, it's a hype page. The flight cost is just filler made to excite you, it will most certainly be much more, none of the links work, there is no app, no faq, no privacy policy. This isn't tech related, this isn't even a product announcement it's just straight hype advertising and y'all are falling for it. Links like this hitting the top of the front page and spurring 150 comments indicate quite comically to me the sunset of what was once an insightful, interesting technology news site.

elwell• 12 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/classic

jessaustin• 12 years ago

I was imagining a zipline...

wyager• 12 years ago

I would absolutely pay for this. It's only about $20-30 more than a taxi (after tip) or about $40 more than an Uber. I'd pay that much for an hour or two less travel time.

carlaldrich• 12 years ago

LIRR to JFK from Penn takes about 20 minutes and only costs a few dollars!

cauterized• 12 years ago

Too bad externalities aren't included in the price. There's already far too much painfully loud helicopter traffic over Brooklyn as it is.

tn13• 12 years ago

Does it still require me to go through the security theater ?

j_lev• 12 years ago

I assume they are still profitable up to $100/barrel oil.

catusia• 12 years ago

I like to pay attention to how much attention they pay to small details, like their copy.

Under "Our Promise to You": "You never need to share the car [?] strangers [...]"

Then, on the footnote to that same section: " Ground travel guarantee available for tavel to JFK & EWR for travel booked [...]"

mandeepj• 12 years ago

gothamair is contradicting itself.

On top they are saying "Call your friends or meet some new ones on board."

At the Tesla section, they are saying - "You never need to share the car strangers". Although there is a typo here (missing 'with')

corin_• 12 years ago

Their claim is that you will share the helicopter rides, however in bad weather you will get a private car without needing to share. Because cars are cheap enough that they can afford to do that (compared to helicopters).

allendoerfer• 12 years ago

As mentioned in the comments, the actual price will be ~200$ with a rented helicopter, which can take up to 6 passenger.

My first thoughts as a layman are, if the service takes off [0] it could be made really feasible if they find a way to rent, land and operate a monster like the Mil Mi-26 [1], which takes 60 civilians or 90 troops.

People would use the service just to fly to the airport for fun.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQZi7tmWhR4

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-26

slayed0• 12 years ago

I think getting stuffed into the back of a windowless Russian military helicopter may conflict with some of the appeal that the service is trying to market.

sandworm• 12 years ago

I'm no stickler for grammar, but if you are running a website for a service claiming to pride itself on luxury and detail, then...

"You never need to share the car strangers and we can pick you up and drop you off at your front door. [double asterisk] "

And the [double asterisk] means you need to book the flight 48 hours in advance if you want the car as backup. That would preclude any crowd-sourced flights via their app. Lol. So much for chopper-uber.

johnchristopher• 12 years ago

There's a missing `with` at the bottom of the last paragraph of the landing page:

You never need to share the car strangers and we can pick you up and drop you off at your front door.

TheMask01• 12 years ago

Shoot,it's ~$60 for an UberX according to http://uberestimate.com/cost/1/JFK/Manhattan/ .....I'd much rather get to tha choppa

robk2• 12 years ago

This makes sense for business travellers if you need to get to JFK for a flight at say 6pm on a weekday. Traffic then is easily 1.5 hours and the variability is too high to comfortably rely on it. If it means an extra hour or two of meetings for that consistency in getting to the airport, seems easily worth the cost of a limo to the airport.

As a side note these things are like venture debt - they seem to only work in boom times. Every time there is a tightening in the financial markets these businesses tend to fold, as in US Helicopter, NY Airways, et al. Bubblicious!

joopxiv• 12 years ago

I don't really understand why you would build an app for this. Apps are great when you need to do something while you're on the move. Booking a helicopter 48 hours in advance doesn't really fall into that category.

snippy• 12 years ago

There's an interesting anecdote from Finland. A company called Copterline flew between Finland's Helsinki and Estonia's Tallinn for many years with two Sikorsky S-76 helicopters. The trip was over the ocean and took 18 minutes.

Sadly one of their copters crashed into the ocean in 2005, killing all 14 aboard. The reason was purely technical. The hydraulic steering system got stuck due to debris that had came loose from an inner coating. The copter was impossible to steer and started spinning around its axis, and spun 13 times until hitting the ocean.

It was the beginning of the end for the company. Later in 2008 they started again with two AgustaWestland AW139 copters. I was aboard once, and it was a fantastic experience. However, it boggled my mind how much even a modern helicopter vibrates. It's a wonder to me how copters can withstand the constant violent vibration. Apparently they can, except in rare cases.

In 2004 Copterline transported 75 000 passengers. If all flights were full (12 passengers and 2 pilots) it means about 17 flights a day, every single day.

Copterline went out of business in December 2008 because it was unprofitable. It's sad, because flying on a helicopter is a cool experience mortals like me usually can't experience without commercial flights.

somberi• 12 years ago

I think 3 hours is an exaggeration. From LGA to Columbia University (The north end of Upper West side of Manhattan) by M60 bus route takes 45 minutes (as of Google maps at 6am today) and the worst I have had is 90 minutes. And the cost of bus ride is a little over 2$. The distance is approximately 8 miles (13Kms).

dr_• 12 years ago

The bigger issue is where does it actually take off from, and how long would it take you to get to the departure site?

ehosca• 12 years ago

what a time to be alive. i wonder if i can customize my ride by having an Arnold look-alike yell "get in the choppa" as i'm boarding it?

leroy_masochist• 12 years ago

I once ran into a squad-mate from The Basic School in a bar in Sneads Ferry NC. He had since become a CH-53 pilot, and that night he was pretty deep into the beers. At one point he made a comment that I remember verbatim because it stuck with me: "Think of a helicopter as 100,000 moving parts competing with each other to be the first one to break."

You guys can take the helo, I'll be fine leaving extra early for the airport and possibly sitting in traffic :)

RayVR• 12 years ago

I frequently fly out of JFK. I have lived in three very different areas of Manhattan. Never has it taken me more than 1.5 hours to get to JFK. I would say the mean time is more like 45 minutes.

Yellow cabs are fixed rate $55 + tolls. I can get an uber for around the same price, often less depending on time of day.

While the idea of having a helicopter fly you out to your airport is great, the actuality of it is likely pretty much on par with car travel.

The biggest value I see is in transportation to the Hamptons or Nantucket. There's no security transfer/terminal concerns, the drive out there on the weekend is a nightmare, and you potentially save time.

manacit• 12 years ago

Uber has done helicopter rides from the city to the Hamptons: http://blog.uber.com/nyc/uberchopper-hamptons-shore-2014

I didn't realize it until now, but they've done Uber Chopper in quite a few places: http://blog.uber.com/tag/uberchopper/

Gotham Air: Manhattan to JFK in 6 minutes for $99

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