The government in New York City is planning to cut its local helicopter tour industry’s revenue by roughly 50 percent (NY Post). All of the income from these tours was earned by people living and working in the New York metro area. Nearly all of the payments (about $50 million per year total says the article) was coming from visitors, including a lot of foreigners. #howtoshrinktheeconomy
On the other hand, it looks as though at least some money was made by lawyers and politicians off the regulatory fight:
Sources said that powerhouse lobbyist James Capalino, a longtime friend and fund-raiser of de Blasio, played a key role in the negotiations. Among the meetings he arranged was a rare face-to-face session with the mayor at City Hall last May – a day after Capalino’s firm gave de Blasio’s nonprofit fundraising arm, Campaign for One New York, a donation of $10,000, records show.
Capalino’s firm has received $120,000 in lobbying fees from the industry since de Blasio took office in 2014, including $85,000 from the Helicopter Tourism & Jobs Council.
Related:
- Political Use of Flight Restrictions (#OnelyOneAmericanCanWorkAtATime)
- Obama and New England aviation businesses start their vacation (#OnelyOneAmericanCanWorkAtATime)
Sounds similar to what happened to Uber’s helicopter service at the Sundance film festival.
Better get to work on that silent anti-gravity technology.
@JPeterson: hear ya go: http://youtu.be/442_rDArIpk
The Zeppelin tour company in California went bankrupt and gave the bag back. Maybe that is what is needed on the Hudson, certainly very silent!
Billg: You’ve implicitly raised a good point. Instead of cutting the tours in half due to the noise complaints, they could have cut the noise by more than half by limiting operations to the latest and greatest Airbus helicopters (formerly “Eurocopters”) and/or MD900 “NOTAR” helicopters and cut it further by spurring innovation: the quieter your helicopters the more tours you get to fly.