from Hacker News

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

by acak on 1/22/15, 10:08 PM with 211 comments

• by nostromo on 1/22/15, 11:26 PM

  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.

• by Animats on 1/22/15, 10:55 PM

  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.

• by pyrophane on 1/22/15, 10:54 PM

  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.

• by crazygringo on 1/23/15, 12:52 AM

  > 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...

• by snippy on 1/23/15, 11:03 AM

  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.

• by fishnchips on 1/22/15, 10:48 PM

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

• by OoTheNigerian on 1/22/15, 11:29 PM

  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.

• by shittyanalogy on 1/23/15, 1:46 AM

  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.

• by akyu on 1/22/15, 11:33 PM

  >fleet of Teslas

  These guys are on top of their buzz game

• by lisper on 1/23/15, 12:05 AM

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

• by dogma1138 on 1/23/15, 12:21 AM

  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.

• by johnloeber on 1/23/15, 12:11 AM

  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?)

• by TheMask01 on 1/23/15, 9:23 AM

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

• by RayVR on 1/23/15, 5:13 PM

  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.

• by allendoerfer on 1/23/15, 7:46 AM

  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

• by sandworm on 1/23/15, 8:22 AM

  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.

• by frenchman_in_ny on 1/22/15, 10:52 PM

  "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?

• by catusia on 1/23/15, 4:32 AM

  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 [...]"

• by droob on 1/22/15, 11:21 PM

  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?

• by italophil on 1/22/15, 11:42 PM

  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

• by robk on 1/23/15, 10:27 AM

  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!

• by jessaustin on 1/23/15, 2:15 AM

  I was imagining a zipline...

• by leroy_masochist on 1/23/15, 4:48 PM

  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 :)

• by nness on 1/23/15, 1:25 AM

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

• by jasonjei on 1/22/15, 11:00 PM

  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.

• by coin on 1/23/15, 1:27 AM

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

• by cauterized on 1/23/15, 3:20 AM

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

• by dr_ on 1/23/15, 1:32 PM

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

• by somberi on 1/23/15, 11:09 AM

  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).

• by slantedview on 1/22/15, 11:50 PM

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

• by joopxiv on 1/23/15, 11:01 AM

  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.

• by ilzmastr on 1/22/15, 10:55 PM

  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.

• by johnchristopher on 1/23/15, 8:35 AM

  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.

• by wyager on 1/23/15, 2:58 AM

  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.

• by drewmate on 1/22/15, 11:08 PM

  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?

• by jrockway on 1/23/15, 12:12 AM

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

• by spitfire on 1/23/15, 12:22 AM

  Typo:

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

• by mandeepj on 1/23/15, 6:53 AM

  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')

• by j_lev on 1/23/15, 4:07 AM

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

• by tn13 on 1/23/15, 3:20 AM

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

• by ehosca on 1/23/15, 1:43 PM

  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?

• by nhayden on 1/22/15, 11:19 PM

  >You never need to share the car strangers

  Typo here, just FYI

• by tptacek on 1/22/15, 10:45 PM

  This can't possibly be real.

• by goeric on 1/23/15, 12:20 AM

  Surf Air for helicopters!

• by mathattack on 1/22/15, 11:17 PM

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

• by carlaldrich on 1/23/15, 3:10 AM

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

• by spiritplumber on 1/22/15, 10:56 PM

  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)