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.
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.
Is that bad though? I'm guessing there are at least hundreds of thousands of helicopter flights in New York annually. ~1 accident per year doesn't sound very dangerous to me.
As for the concept, it's Uber for helicopters. As long as there is a need (I don't and would never live in New York so I have no idea what the demand for this is) then it may very well be successful.
It's hard to compare cars and helicopters. From the article:
"Between 2005 and 2009, there was an annual average of 1.44 fatalities (PDF) per 100,000 flying hours in nonmilitary helicopters. Over the same period, there were 13.2 traffic fatalities per 100,000 population in the United States annually. Since the average American spends around 780 hours per year (PDF) in the car, that means the fatality rate per 100,000 hours of driving time is just 0.017. Based on hours alone, helicopters are 85 times more dangerous than driving."
Assume you used such a service (roundtrip) once per month, and it saved you 40 hours per year.
The annual risk of dying in the helo crash (taking the numbers from above) is 12 minutes flying RT * 12 RT/year = 144 minutes per year / 60 mins/hr * 1.44/100K or a risk of dying of 3.456 per 100K years. (overstated as the figure is fatalities per 100K hours, not fatal accidents per 100K).
The annual risk of dying in a car crash if you took that instead is 240 minutes * 12 RT/yr / 60 mins/hr * 0.017 = 0.816 per 100K years.
Over 50 years, your life expectancy has been shortened by about 12 hours. (This is the math I'm least sure about.)
Over that same 50 years, the helo has saved you 2000 hours of your life, for a net addition of almost months of life (assuming, as I do, you derive no value from the car ride to the airport).
Said differently, each roundtrip saves you about 3 hours of your life, plus gives you a fantastic view of the city on the way...
> an annual average of 1.44 fatalities (PDF) per 100,000 flying hours in nonmilitary helicopters.
Big question here of what's being measured. If this includes search and rescue helicopters, fire fighting, weather, and similar, then it's not at all comparable to routine transportation driving.
The article talks about some of the difficulties. FWIW, i think ambulance accident rates are about 4 times more than routine driving. So more like 20x more dangerous to fly.
There's also a bunch of complexity about what happens to helicopter safety rates when that kind of flying becomes routine. Maybe it'll get way safer, because there are so many less risky flights, maybe it'll get more dangerous because pilots get complacent.
fwiw, i walk to work, so i hardly drive at all. If i was in a situation that i could take the flight, i'd take the flight.
An anecdotal source this - but a family friend of ours is a senior pilot for a well known international airline and a former air-force pilot. He also owns and fly's a microlight in his spare time.
Recently my father took a helicopter flight and when this family friend heard about it he was absolutely livid at my father for risking his life and made my father swear to never fly a helicopter again.
>Recently my father took a helicopter flight and when this family friend heard about it he was absolutely livid at my father for risking his life and made my father swear to never fly a helicopter again.
Could just mean that pilots can be irrational too.
Once I run the numbers for air travel fatality rates, as compared to car fatality rates but talking into account miles travelled for both (and number of passengers etc), and, assuming I was correct, they came out pretty close.
Per mile is a weird metric, isn't it? It just seems to favor aircraft that travel so much farther.
Per trip would be interesting Not to mention, a minor crash or serious failure in a car is usually a walk away event. A minor crash or serious failure in a plane or chopper is usually fatal. Its okay if my car breaks down on the interstate. Its not okay if my plane does over the ocean, like Air France 447.
I'm not saying air travel is unsafe. I just think we're selling the point incorrectly.
90% of the risk in airplane travel is the takeoffs and landings, not the miles travelled. IIRC it came out to each airplane trip was as dangerous as ~30 miles of driving, meaning any trip that is normally offered by an airline is noticeably safer.
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.
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.
They don't know the security theater procedures so they take longer to go through them and hold up the people behind them (laptop out of bag; liquids, gels, and aerosols in plastic bag; etc).
(That's one of the advantages of TSA PreCheck - not only are there fewer people in line, but the people who are in line are frequent flyers who tend to move fast.)
"What do you mean, does this big sign that says 'take off your belt' mean that I actually have to, you know, take off my belt? And this form that says 'are you carrying any fresh fruit on you', I didn't think that would apply to this orange in my backpack because, you know, I didn't see anything wrong with it!"
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.
As someone who lives in a city with a population of approximately 100,000 in the greater metro area - Launceston, Tasmania - I'd like to take a moment to reflect on your comment.
Google Maps tells me Manhattan to JFK Airport is a 32 kilometre taxi ride and takes three hours, plus it takes two hours to clear security at the airport.
I'm a little astounded by those numbers. Five hours to get from the couch at home to the airport. Astounding. I'm through the airport and in Melbourne city in under 2 hours.
I would definitely pay $100 to reduce that. I think $100 helicopter flights is something I would do with friends just to get a drink across town occasionally. How novel!
The numbers above are an exaggeration. I lived in the north end of manhattan (the part furthest from JFK) and an hour to get to JFK was on the long side - typical is probably 40-80 minutes. It doesn't take two hours to clear security at an airport either - typical is anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes.
The problem is you have to allow extra time in case something has gone wrong. I waited two hours in a queue at O'Hare just to get through security - thankfully I had allowed three hours.
Compare that to anywhere in Australia where you can be sure security won't take more than 10 minutes - you can arrive at the airport with 45 minutes before your flight and still be waiting 20 minutes after you check in and pass security before you board.
Incidentally, Uber direct to JFK is slightly cheaper than a cab too ($45-ish?). You think it would be crazy expensive, but it's flat rate. I'm not sure about from JFK into the city, but I think I was told it was the same.
I'm not too big of a fan of the AirTram + Long Island Railway (LIRR) route, which ends up at one of the major train stations, has on outside terminal (not great in the winter and slow with a lot of things to remember to do), but is about half price of that.
I've become a big fan of the AirTrain + LIRR combo since moving into Manhattan from Brooklyn. Almost always consistently 45-50 minutes from terminal to my apartment in Chelsea. Perfect for rush hour to/from JFK.
Uber to JFK is $66 right now. Taxis are a flat rate to JFK as well ($60 plus tip). There are car services you can call which will do it cheaper.
I've recently started doing Penn Station -> Jamaica w/ LIRR -> AirTrain, it's miles better than subway and almost preferable to car if you're paying for the car.
Uber flat price to the city is great until you hit a surge, which is easy to hit in the afternoons, especially when it rains. Then it can be 2x or 3x the price of pre-booking a ride. Uber should add reserve pricing for trips you know in advance, like AWS does.
There is no way google maps says that takes 3 hours, right now it shows 27min but obviously there is no traffic right now. In order for that trip to take 3 hours you would need a perfect storm of EXTREME traffic, zero knowledge of the city, and no gps to help you navigate. I would be astounded by those numbers too, but they aren't even close to accurate.
You're right, sorry. I was looking at the distance on Google maps and then the 3hrs OP had mentioned. I didn't even think to look at Google maps time, which presently states 30 minutes. Looking now at what I've written it's obvious I didn't word that how I intended it. Thanks for picking that up.
Takes me about an hour door-to-door via public transportation from downtown Brooklyn. I've never felt like paying the $70 to take a taxi, so not sure how long that takes.
Definitely not three hours. Longest I've been stuck in traffic was 50 minutes from east Manhattan to JFK, and that was at 5pm on the day before Christmas eve (23rd).
Three hours seems extreme. I live in Manhattan and can get to LGA in under an hour on a public bus, or by taxi in 35-45 minutes, and a taxi to JFK might take an hour but certainly not three.
JFK is at the end of a long subway line, with the Air Train between the subway and the airport. Coming from most parts of Manhattan, I would budget 90 minutes to get there via the subway and 45 minutes by taxi.
The subway to JFK is cheaper, but most people who live in Manhattan and can afford to fly semi-regularly are going to spring for a taxi.
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
Having it on-demand means they are possibly flying under FAA part 135 regs (charter/commuter) instead of 119 (scheduled carrier) so the expense might be a little lighter there.
That said, someone's got to pay the mortgage on a $2.6 million ship, plus fuel and maint and salaries etc etc.
They're not the carrier. From the bottom of the page:
Gotham Air is not a direct air carrier but rather provides technology and information services enabling consumers to obtain aircraft charter and shared aircraft charter services from FAA certified and DOT registered air carriers who exercise operational control over all flights .
Exactly I've seen a few services like this advertised exactly the same way (WSJ ads some run by former industry execs).
Interesting thought that the picture of the heli contradicts that (says "Gotham Air" on the side). That's no small point actually. Gives someone who doesn't read the fine print the idea that they do operate the aircraft. I understand why they do that but it is a bit deceptive.
Wouldn't the livery on that helicopter in the photo just be a form of corporate advertising. Couldn't you paint your aircraft however you want so long as the correct registration / licensing marks are visible?
I would imagine that the chance of getting sued is quite small. What individual would sue and what harm would they claim? Government FTC most likely would not care and if they did all they would have to do is change the picture.
Likewise if there was an accident someone would have to say they relied on that information and was mislead. Unlikely (especially in the case of death how do you prove that?). Plus it is common practice to operate like this by similar parties.
A significant chunk of US airline flights are operated by a company other than the one whose logo is on the airliner. It mostly applies to the smaller regional "feeder" names, like United Express (actually operated by Cape Air, CommutAir, ExpressJet, and a bunch of others), and American Eagle (operated by AVAir, Chaparral Airlines, Command Airways, and more).
I have no idea if Gotham plans to actually operate that way, but I'd be shocked if there were actually a legal problem if they did.
A helicopter company is going to have a hard time hiring iOS developers and managing a software development project, not to mention the most important part: the brand.
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.
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.
> 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.
For mobile phones there's a bit of regulatory backlash. iirc as of this year you can't market a phone as free anymore for example, and then combine it with a 2-year contract and advertise a 50% off 3-month rate.
So an $800 phone costing $60 a month for 2 years ($93 per month) gets advertised as 'free iPhone at just $30!'
Not sure if it works on our generation. On the one hand, obviously it does to some extent, else they wouldn't do it. I know I always made spreadsheets of monthly-average-costs (taking into account resell value of the phone) everytime I got into a 2-year contract. I know a few friends operate like that, too... In any case I think the fake advertised rate may not convince anyone in and of itself, but it does grab the attention, and that's such a key facet of marketing. For example here I'm sure plenty of people would be interested in paying $200 for the helicopter trip, but they probably wouldn't have immediately paid attention to it or had friends tell them about it or have it stuck in their minds if it wasn't priced $99.
Ryanair, too. They will fly you to $MAJOR_CITY* for just €0.50†!
* Where we actually mean "a smaller airport 150km away from that city and you're on your own for getting to it"
† Plus €20 ticketing fee, €20 payment-processing fee, €20 boarding-pass issuance fee, €20 checked baggage fee, €20 carry-on baggage fee, €20 fee for no baggage, €20 plane-boarding fee, €20 airport use fee, €20 fee-handling fee and other additional fees as indicated in the terms and conditions
The far away airport is indeed buried in the fine print, but under current law (at least where I live) the advertised price has to be the final price; Ryanair skirt this by having one obscure credit card that they'll accept without a fee and a big fee for any other kind, but unavoidable fees on top of the advertised price are illegal.
You forgot €20 choose a seat - it's €0 if you want a randomly assigned seat but somehow the website mislead me in to clicking it, it took me 20 minutes to get this far in the booking, I'm scared to press the browser back button and I'm so frustrated now I'm blind to the clear and easy method of modifying the my previous selection, if there even is one, because the page changed as soon as I clicked. Maybe the site has a bug, but who wouldn't know it's not like I'm going to call the airline for support on their website. But it's only €20 and this flight is now costing me €400 anyway so it's not even worth my time to sit here for another half hour trying to purchase a ticket- fee.
A combination of legal changes and consumer pressure has changed that a lot. I flew them recently (for the first and last time - but that wasn't related to obfuscated pricing) and there wasn't much in the way of hidden charges. Checked baggage was extra and there was a tiny card processing fee, other than that I paid the advertised price.
And don't forget, if you close the page and come back a little later, the price will have gone up. And magically if you remove your cache and cookies and refresh, the price has dropped! Man I love airlines.
With EasyJet I've always paid the advertised price, give or take a couple of £. As far as I'm aware they don't have any "first-time flyer" discount rates.
Got an example? I've seen plenty where the introductory rate is bigger, but the fact that it's an introductory rate is still made adequately clear, as is the true price. I could be misremembering or oblivious, though. I'd happily call others blatant false advertising as well if so.
I checked out the site for Cox, my local cable company. For TV, they advertise $49.99, and above that in smaller letters it says "prices per month for 3 months, starting at." If I click "Find Out More" below the price, which it seems is required to get any details or sign up, it then gives me several plans whose prices are "for 12 months with 2-year service agreement." If I keep poking around I can finally view the terms of the offer which says "Bundle rate increases $15/month for months 13-24."
Certainly not great. But at least it's reasonably clear that the number they give you isn't the full story, even if finding the real one takes a bit of legwork. Not trying to defend them, but this helicopter thingy is a bit worse.
That's beyond the contract, so the price is subject to change. I don't have a problem with that. There isn't much I can sign up for today where I know what the price will be two years out. My mortgage qualifies, and that's about it.
In my experience with these things (although I haven't tried with Cox), month 25 is usually when prices go back down, because that's when they might lose you to a competitor.
Considering I've driven past buses covered in bumper to bumper ads for McDonalds, the local hospital system, and a pawnshop this morning, I think it's safe to say getting your name and logo on a vehicle isn't an insurmountable task. I would consider starting a helicopter-as-a-service to be the greater challenge.
They almost certainly don't own the helicopters, that would be an extremely large cost for them (up front) including maintenance, staffing, storage and so on. Virtually no businesses actually own their own birds. Their USP is that instead of going to the owners and chartering the chopper yourself, they'll match you up with other commuters and you pay your 5th or 6th of the cost.
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.
Somebody should validate their privacy policy. A list of active email addresses of people who desire this product could be extremely lucrative for other purposes.
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.
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!
? Not a complaint, I don't even have kids. But if it was $99 for the ride (regardless of people) then it's more price efficient for a family flying compared to the hundreds it costs after their promotional pricing.
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.
I think regulations and efficacy will be the hardest hurdles, as they are proving to be for non-passenger drones. Second to sensory and risk perception challenges which will just various cameras and extra code.
If you assume you're taking out the pilot and replacing him with electronics, and assuming your average pilot is ~80-90kg, that's a fairly substantial amount of weight available for computing systems.
The theory between small and large craft autonomous flight should be the same, we've already got plenty of aircraft sized drones flying about that are packed with ordnance and axillary sensors for imaging and surveillance.
You have more things to worry about regarding subsystems on larger craft, but even those will likely just be additional code rather than extra heavy hardware on board.
I think the most likely pathway for a passenger drone will be retrofitting existing aircraft, and that could amount to a bunch of sensory equipment, a main control unit and a bunch of servos. Nothing too heavy, and it would just eat into a helicopters existing weight limits which are often fairly substantial.
> 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.
> 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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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."
Tube is ~5 I think, and bus even less. But the expensive train (15GBP, still much less than $99) gets a lot of advertising and is in all the guidebooks, so many people assume it's the only way to go (plus it's owned by the airport so they try to guide you that way). I've never known anyone who'd book a car, I once took a taxi when the tube broke down and I was running late and it was GBP30 to go ~3 miles. That seems like the preserve of the super-rich.
It's not a short time because the train's fast, it's short because it's not very far. And the claimed speed advantage is based on a somewhat gerrymandered definition of "central london".
The express is sometimes worth it, but it very much depends on where you're going; the express simply dumps you out at Paddington which does not have great onward connections. Whereas the Piccadilly line, being a tube line that goes right through the centre, can often take you directly where you want to go (particularly as a tourist) - Piccadilly itself, Leicester Square, Covent Garden, Kings Cross, ...
None of this matters much to me since I'm often staying someplace close to Paddington and/or Mayfair. If I'm not staying there, I'm off to Canary Wharf and it's a taxi ride no matter what.
If you're fine with lugging baggage up and down the tube stairwells, then fine by you, but I prefer the Express for any number of reasons and time of travel/distance traveled isn't the sole determinant of my choice.
If you're staying near Paddington then sure, it makes sense. But for going to Canary Wharf the tube option is pretty nice - just change at Green Park (step-free since the rebuild) to the Jubilee line.
Why does international flight mean 2 full suit cases? Seriously I'm 12 days in on a 14 day business trip across 'the pond' with a half sized roller board and that includes both the work laptop and a personal one, juggling props (hey come'on it's Europe) and running gear.
For business I figure if the privatized transport from the airport is 1/2 as long and not silly costs I'll expense it without guilt. At supposedly $99 from JFK it sounds legit for a short business trip. Granted they claim PMV, so YMMV.
> Why does international flight mean 2 full suit cases?
Certainly 1 full suitcase?
Shirts, pants, socks, underwear, perhaps a suit or two, and a pair of extra shoes? I can easily fill a suitcase with that stuff.
Do you do laundry on your trip? That would certainly significantly reduce the quantity of clothes required. Now that all airlines are charging per bag (previously all airlines allowed two free bags) it probably makes more sense to figure out how to wash clothes abroad than to lug around a lot of extra clothing.
Take a little jar of soap and wash out the stuff that needs washing out. For a 2 week trip, I'd admittedly typically check luggage though. A lot depends on the details of the trip and the climate.
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.
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.
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.
OT but check the flights from NYC to City Airport they are much better than anything you can get from/to Heathrow unless you are flying with mile high club ;)
The only flights I'm aware of that fly NYC-LCY are the BA flights that are all business. The nice thing is that you get to pre-clear immigration in Shannon, Ireland but unfortunately I'm not quite important enough to demand $10k flights.
I'm sure that's true. Though even when I'm spending Other People's Money I tend to avoid gratuitously burning it when I legitimately don't care. As I was discussing with someone this past week, I'm probably something of an exception--or at least have somewhat different priorities about things I care about.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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?)
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 $55 + tolls. I can get an uber for around the same price, often less depending on time of day.
While the idea of having a helicopter fly you out to your airport is great, the actuality of it is likely pretty much on par with car travel.
The biggest value I see is in transportation to the Hamptons or Nantucket. There's no security transfer/terminal concerns, the drive out there on the weekend is a nightmare, and you potentially save time.
As mentioned in the comments, the actual price will be ~200$ 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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...
>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.
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!
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 :)
Perhaps unrelated, but the gothamair.com is blocked by McAfee's proxy (corporate environments, sigh). Medium risk of phishing is the justification given...
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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).
It actually does, the problem is that the same restrictions do not apply.
A very large amount of private aircraft related accidents happen because of extreme conditions in which a commercial airliner would have not been flying under in any case.
Privately owned aircraft also tend to be much less well maintained and their pilots have considerably fewer flight hours than big or small commercial aircraft.
This is when "safety" takes a backseat to private ownership and responsibility, it's not because smaller aircraft are inherently less safe.
When embark on a private flight in a private aircraft there's virtually almost no circumstances in which you will not be cleared off for take off. Not to mention that anything upto a small jet can does take of from any sufficiently long patch of dirt rather than a fully staffed airport with ground crew that services and clears the aircraft.
If these guys will follow the same rules there is nothing much more inherently unsafe in being in a smaller or a rotary wing aircraft than in a brand new 747-800.
If you apply napkin calculations you can also make it sound that military aircraft are much more less safe than civilian ones, even in such cases in which they are the exact same aircraft in a different color scheme. It's not that the aircraft is less safe it's that the conditions it operates under are inherently more dangerous both in peace time and war.
First of all, you can't just mention a bunch of ways in which smaller aircraft are unsafe and then declare that they somehow don't count. If pilot experience and currency is a big factor for why small planes are more dangerous (and it most certainly is), then it's just a factor for why small planes are more dangerous, not some way that small planes aren't more dangerous.
For this specific service, there are a couple of things that do make it inherently less safe than being in a brand new 747-800. Specifically, there's much less redundancy and fewer emergency options for when something goes wrong. If you lose an engine on a 747 then you just keep going. If you lose an engine, or rather the engine, on a Manhattan-JFK helicopter flight then you're going down extremely fast and you have few or no good options for where to put the thing. It's similar for suddenly encountering a flock of geese (the odds of a safe landing in the river with a 100% survival rate are considerably lower with a helicopter than with an A320), fuel exhaustion, or a sudden pilot heart attack (I'm guessing there aren't two pilots in these things).
Mid-air collisions are another potential danger. I'm guessing that a helicopter like this doesn't have a TCAS system, and not all of the airspace in question requires ATC clearance. Nine people died in a helicopter/airplane collision in NYC in 2009, and it could happen again.
I don't mean to paint an excessively bleak picture here. I'd have no qualms about taking a flight on one of these helicopters, aside from the price. But at the same time we shouldn't kid ourselves by thinking that it's safer than taking a car, let alone as safe as an airliner.
If these helicopters are FAR Part 135 they'd likely have TCAS. Glass cockpit helicopters flown by commercial pilots are quite likely safer than driving.
Also, a skilled pilot can autorotate a Bell 407 without damage or injury. In fact, it would be easier than ditching a A320.
A friend of mine had a near mid-air in a Bell 407 over a city, flying between buildings, due to the other helicopter operating on an IFR clearance below authorized IFR altitude, shortly after takeoff. Luckily, this particular Bell 407 had EVS(Enhanced Vision System) FLIR (Forward Looking InfraRed) and they were able to descend hard and passed under "IFR" helicopter. The FAA busted the other pilot for failing to set their transponder correctly, and failing to maintain proper lookout, among other things.
Oh nice, I didn't realize TCAS was available there.
As for autorotation, my worry isn't so much the procedure (although it sounds much trickier than a gliding landing in an airplane) but the fact that you don't get much horizontal maneuvering and there aren't many good places to land in a dense city, and the fact that there are many single points of failure that make it much more likely to happen.
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.