Boston to New York by Helicopter?

A Vancouverite pointed out that one can fly from downtown Vancouver to downtown Seattle on http://www.helijet.com for $120 each way (full fare, unrestricted) and that this service has been around for many years.  Boston/NY is a bit farther but should be doable for $200 (the Delta Shuttle’s full fare is $226 one way).


A Sikorsky S-76 helicopter holds 12 passengers and costs $3000 per hour to charter, perhaps half that to operate all day every day.  The new S-92 holds 19 passengers and the brochure claims that you can run it for $2200 per hour.


It will take about 1.25 hours to get from Boston to New York.  Assuming that we get 15 passengers on the average trip in an S-92, there would be a fat profit if we could collect the same price as the Delta Shuttle folks.


Where to land?  The Museum of Science in Boston has a heliport and there are several options in Manhattan, including the Port Authority’s heliport.  Rudy Guiliani had been closing heliports because he claimed that the deafening noise and pollution of burning hundreds of gallons of jet fuel per hour somehow degraded quality of life.  Fortunately the new mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has his own personal helicopter and will presumably be more sympathetic to the transportation needs of the elite.


[A bit of searching at http://registry.faa.gov reveals that Michael Rubens Bloomberg has instrument, multi, and helicopter ratings.]


So folks, what will it be?  The $10 Chinatown-Chinatown bus, AMTRAK’s Four Hour Fast Train (TM), or our new hypothetical helicopter?

7 thoughts on “Boston to New York by Helicopter?

  1. My favourite NYC helicopter image is from an Absolutely Fabulous episode (http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/abfab/): Edina Monsoon is urging a pilot to land atop a Manhattan skyscraper’s roof. Her mission: to rescue her friend Patsy Stone, who staked out the roof in an uncharacteristic moment of despondency & introspection. But at the sight of Eddy’s approach, Patsy’s spirits lift. She holds her “Stoly” aloft, and as her shout of “Yeah, babe!” drowns out the chopter’s noise, it’s clear that the helicopter will manage the landing. When it comes to Patsy, Eddy brings on the big power tools to get her way.

    The Helijet service — Vancouver or Victoria to Seattle — flies just once a day, typically arriving in Seattle in the early afternoon. Unlike NYC (or Boston), Seattle is often a jumping-off point for cheaper air fares to California (vs. using Air Canada direct from Vancouver) or to points East, and the limited service makes Helijet useless for those travellers. Might work for Boston-NYC, though, but don’t you think the train is better?

  2. Sooner or later, Doc , you will come to appreciate my ‘ buzzard suit ‘.

    Why it has not already been done escapes me.

  3. Quite a few people get airsick in helicopters. It’s not exactly the best form of mass-transit for the unitiated.

  4. I am having serious deja vu. I had a dream about this post. Not just a post about helicopter service to from NY-Boston but a post about it on a web site that I had never seen before. Today is my first visit. Freaky! Anyway, I think it is a great idea and I would ride it. I doubt the service could bypass the strict TSA requirements but it sure would cut down the to and from airport travel time in the City. In Boston, the service might as well go to Logan — the bloody airport is so close to everything anyway and the resistance to low flying aircraft over the city (even over the Charles) will be greater.

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