PETER SHANKMAN
| POSTED ON September 17th, 2008 | 47 COMMENTS | + ADD YOUR COMMENT |
Tried the US Helicopter service from NYC to Newark Airport yesterday. After taking it, I realize that I can never take a regular form of transportation to the airport ever again. It was truly awesome.
For about $30 more than a car service from my apartment, I walked into the US Helicopter terminal on 33rd Street and the FDR Drive. Once there, I walked inside, checked in, (I was one of two people on the flight) and was checked in not only for the USH flight, but for my flight to South Carolina, too.
Then I went through security. While I still had to take my shoes off, I didn’t have to take my laptop out! Now I was using the new “Checkpoint Friendly” laptop bag from Pathfinder Luggage, but the TSA guy said it was because when they only had one person at a time through security, they could just look. So, SCORE!
Sat in the lounge there for 10 minutes, then was escorted to the helicopter. All my bags were carried for me, I just walked and watched. And giggled.
Got onto the Helicopter, less than a minute later we were in the air. Went down the East River, cut across Wall Street, over the Hudson, past the container yards, and over the airport. Landed at the edge of the airport. Total airtime – 8:35.
This is from the time we hit the airport until we landed. The last 2 mins of the flight.
Got off the helicopter, right into a van five feet away. Took me right to the gate. Literally, to my gate. Walked up the ramp, waited about five minutes, they called for boarding, I walked onto the plane.
I don’t understand why more people don’t use this – Granted, they don’t fly late nights or weekends, so I can’t use it all the time – but next week I have to go to Denver. I have a 10am flight. I’d have to leave my apartment at 6 to take mass transit there, or I can leave at 8:30, walk to the helicopter pad, get on a 9am chopper, be at my gate by 9:20, and walk onto my plane. For what? $30 more than a car service? I’m a believer.
Coolest thing – This isn’t a “luxury” or “uber-rich” thing I’ve discovered. If you’ve ever taken a car to the airport in rush hour, or dealt with EWR security at 6:30am on a Monday, you know what it’s like. So I don’t consider this a “luxury” by any stretch. This is a necessity – and part of doing business. If you find something that makes your time better spent, you do the math and ask yourself if the slight extra cost is justified by the amount of time you’ve saved. If it is, you do it. (Same reason you go to the front of the cab line at McCarran in Vegas and offer to pay for a cab for the next person who’s going to your hotel. You’d have to pay for it anyway, this saves you an hour or three during CES.)
I ask you – is my logic sound?
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Works for me – though it might breakdown when adding an assistant/staffer/handler (what, No Meagan?) since the car service is the same price if you pack it like a clown car or have enough room to stretch out. |
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So, you spent 30 dollars to save 90 minutes. I may be in Alabama, but my math tells me that’s 20 dollars an hour. Something tells me you bill more than 20 dollars an hour… The only additional cost incurred would be for the email filtering software you would need to mute the eco-weenies complaining about your massive carbon footprint. Toss in an extra 15 bucks for the animal shelter, and tell Greenpeace to take it up with Fido. |
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This is probably the most useful thing I have ever read since subscribing to this blog. Not to knock your content by any means, but this is just an amazingly useful service for the frequent traveler. I will be visiting NYC often and will be sure to use this. GREAT FIND! |
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yay peter! I love taking the helicopter from YVR to Tofino. Nice treat compared to having to wait in ferry line ups, the ride itself and then the 5 hours to drive to Tofino… when I can do in 45 minutes by helicopter. :) and for less than what it cost to drive Helicopter $99 Driving by car: |
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Let’s have a moment of appreciation for the closest thing we have to flying cars. (and may I point out that I feel RIPPED OFF that we don’t have REAL flying cars by now) When I worked for Aetna, years ago, I used to take the helicopter from Hartford to either NYC or Newark airport every couple of weeks and I still miss those views, especially being eye-to-eye with Miss Liberty herself. |
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A no brainer. You can always get more money. You can never get enough time. Good for you. |
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Great idea, Peter. Sounds well worth the extra money. If you were expensing the trip to a client, they would wind up saving money because the fee of the chopper is less than most hourly billing rates… I am definitely bookmarking their site! Thanks! |
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Yes, your logic is sound. |
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Sounds like money well spent and you’ve certainly peaked my interest. |
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Wow – great idea. I’ll be sharing this with all my time management clients I coach in NYC. I’m also loving the new laptop bags that are TSA approved. I blogged about them last month and also about the benefits of using the CLEAR access card to save time. Visit my blog under organized travel if you’re interested. Thanks for sharing the whirlybird idea! Totally worth the $30 and a lot more exciting for you, I’m sure as a skydiver! |
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Yes, you are spot on! Several years ago, I began using a car service to get to the airport. Now, my wife admits that she refuses to go any other way. Besides the time savings, the total peace of mind of having someone else battle the traffic and arrive at your gate relaxed is worth a lot. |
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Absolutely it was worth it! For the time you saved…WOW! We feel the same about direct flights vs connections. It is not worth our time wasted for most connect flights vs money saved to get them. We’d rather pay a bit more and get their faster. |
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I once heard an essay on NPR which recommended – in any situation where you could hire someone for less than your hourly rate – subbing out as much of your life as possible. Time v money is part of the story – but I think the bottom line is Quality of Life. I don’t feel a need to justify expenses (within reason) that positively impact QoL. That’s why I bother having a job in the first place! |
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Of course it’s money well spent, as long as you don’t hit the point of diminishing returns. I justify having a housekeeper, despite the fact that I am a single woman living alone with no kids, because a) I hate housecleaning and enjoy spending my time working, and b) I bill far more an hour an hour than she does. It all holds water until you are saving time that you can’t bill out or be compensated for. If I was an trader in, let’s say, a large venerable Wall Street firm that imploded and closed its doors… I might think twice about spending the extra $30 to save time on the trip to the airport because I probably had more time on my hands than money in my pocket. |
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Peter…congratulations, I love it. Time is valuable and the more time we save on non-productive things, the more time we have to make money or spend in other areas! I hope everyone understands this, if not start looking at where you spend your time in your life. Are you doing things that are taking away from your big payoff activities. If so, delegate. Lets all look at where we can save time. Check out the young entrepreneur society and the YES movie about them at http://www.theYESmovie.com, they are masters of thier time. I will see you all on the Helicopter. |
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What a find! Yes, your logic is quite sound. And as one of the “eco-weenies” mentioned in an earlier post, may I suggest http://www.conservationfund.or.....nia/garcia as a potential donation site to help offset any/all carbon footprints. |
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So, does it go ‘the other way’? Can I get the chopper to take me from the airport to NYC? Time is money. Period. Thanks for the tip! Next time I’m in NYC…I’m taking the heli! |
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The older I get the more often I find myself making the time vs. money calculation too, and as long as the numbers work I choose to save my time. I can always get more money after all… As for the carbon footprint–which is an issue–if more people took the chopper thanks to your post that would at least help. Because you’d have fewer cars on the road and more butts on the chopper. I regularly do heli-drop ski trips and have thought long and hard about the enviro costs of the chopper. But since we just get dropped then picked up a week later, and it’s all human-powered while we’re out there, I like to think we’re striking a reasonable balance… And ya gotta admit, flying in a helicopter is WAY cool! Thanks for the awesome HARO’s!!! Stacy |
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I’m not even that familiar with the traffic, but it seems a no brainer to me. Maybe I missed something, though. |
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Wow – cool. Didn’t realize there was a way to avoid airport security. Only drawback – no time to get my Sausage Egg and Cheese Biscuit – something I only indulge in during that waiting time at airports! |
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$30 more?! You spend $30 on a bad lunch. Totally worth it. I think it’s worth $130 more. Watch, now this company’s going to get all this new business and double the price. P.S. Love the non-smiling close-up of the fellow passenger next to you. |
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I took that helicopter ride over 20 years ago and I still remember it as the best and coolest way to get to EWR. BTW, it’s not just Time vs Money…You also get 500 CO OnePass miles and let’s not discount the coolness factor of flying over the Statue of Liberty. Also, they run frequent promo with discounts or free rides, depending on your ticketed fare. safe travels |
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That is sheer brilliance! |
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Ah, skip the calculations and do what you want to enjoy your time. The whole time vs. money argument is total bullshit for all of this, particularly private jets. The huge error is that you don’t have 24 billable hours in a day – you don’t have eight PRODUCTIVE hours, you have maybe 5-6 useful productive hours scattered throughout a 8-12 hour workday, and the rest is learning, resting, eating, relaxing, wasted time (bad meetings, useless phone calls, etc.) You’re going to either get paid or bill out the same amount of revenue whether you travel quicker or visit more places or make more phone calls or whatever – some people imagine that busy = productive – it’s not. So do whatever makes you happier. So there is no mathematical way to calculate a time vs money thing because you and everyone else simply isn’t that efficient or productive with a 24 hour day. I.E. – 2/3 of your day is ALREADY “wasted” time – you’re not going to gain that much by improving the other 1/3 a tiny bit. I’ve flown on corporate flights, have relatives that crewed on them, have done marketing and studies on flight departments. It’s all mostly bull except for sales. The only two functions served well by corporate aviation are getting your hot salesguys in and out of as many territories as quickly as possible, and shipping your supervisors around to various facilities to review and correct production/service issues – And that’s only necessary when you can’t get someone qualified to live in Buttmunch, Idaho to manage the plant directly. Much of the flight time is wasted by execs goofing off, or on shipping people together for meetings that easily could have been done with teleconferencing. So do whatever your revenue allows you to enjoy. |
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Peter, The idea sound great if you are flying Delta or Continental. If flying anyone else this disclaimer from their website: **If you are traveling on Delta via JFK and Continental via Newark, upon arrival at the airport you will be able to proceed directly to your connecting gate. If you are connecting to or from UH from an airline other than Delta or Continental Airlines, please allow a minimum of 120 minutes connecting time. In this case you will be required to leave the secure area, avail of public transportation to the terminal of the carrier you will be flying on, where you will once again be required to go through TSA security. Please be sure to check the minimum check in time of the carrier you are traveling. ** So flying some other than the two mentioned may actually take MORE time? |
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totally worth the time savings–you essentially added 2.5 hours to your day. (time for a fourth issue of HARO!) And in avoiding the stress of the car ride, the airport madness, etc., you’ve added years to your life expectancy. Plus the cool points you get for traveling by heli…win win all the way. |
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Your reasoning is sound. If I lived where this was an option, I’d use it. Although .. I’ve never been comfy about the failure mode for a helicopter over water. The first thing you do is slam into the water. Then the motor on top flips the thing upside down. Then you sink. This all happens very fast. |
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I think your logic is quite sound. If I didn’t live a 10 minute drive from EWR I would probably take the helicopter as well. Any method you use to get there is going to cost you something, be it mass transit, car service, park & fly, or the helicopter. Unless you’re really on a budget, taking the service that gets you there the quickest and with the least amount of stress makes complete sense. From my own perspective, I would tale the helicopter just to avoid the security line when I fly. That is worth more than $30.00 to me. |
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WOW – That’s awesome – I have some INSANE flights booked in the next two weeks – gotta start thinking of some shortcuts like this too. I’m catching a 6am flight out of DC to Philly on the 25th so I can play golf at Merian East at 8:30am. Wish there was a better way to make that tee time too :) On the flip side (and only occasionally here) I like to take the slow way too – and I pack my iPhone and Laptop in the trunk of the car and just enjoy the drive from the back seat with no distractions or pressure :) Cameron |
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Top three things I learned on this post: 3) Peter found a great service, and will probably end up with them as a client given all the free pub he just demonstrated he could get for them. 2) Red Baron has no sense of humor whatsoever. 1) Holy crap! Milton f***ing Friedman is alive! |
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Excellent idea. The 30.00 is worth just getting past security :). And the coolness factor of the flight. I will use it next time I am up there. - mike PS — You may also want to check with your airlines as I remember Delta having “deals” with them quite often. |
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The key here – for $30 more, you get to be up in the air, which you love. Bet the rush is easily worth that. Compounded with time savings, sounds like a huge win. Good for you! |
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I’d be interested to know what the comparative carbon footprints are. |
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Peter The world LOVES a man with IDEAS. Now THERE is an IDEA. Thank you for sharing Timothy Smith(Smile-Therapy.com) |
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This was not a sound logical decision for you; but then you already know that; being smart about cabs at an annual event, or cutting to the chase when you’re in an occasional bind on time are fine decisions; but who you are as a person, what you feel about the world, and how you experience the people and places around you are not reflective of a “helicopter personality” … for you it’s about the journey and not the destination, it is about the quality and not quantity of your time; and getting from A to B shouldn’t be a logical choice but a practical decision based upon what brings true fulfillment and satisfaction to your life as you see it. (imho) |
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Short hops are going to be the future if airlines continue with high prices, diminished routes and bad service. Private air is on the rise – the technology is there and the aircrafts are coming. (Caution – shameless client plug coming.) Linear Air and other air taxi companies want executives to get more easily from point A to B and avoid congested airports. Based on Peter’s experience, the model should work. |
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Hey Peter, |
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Such a good deal. The old adage applies: time is money and $30 is a bargain. Thanks for the tip. |
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Spend $30? Save an hour and a half? Who cares? Dude, it’s a HELICOPTER flight! I had one, once, around New York Harbor, and I was hooked. If I had to get from Manhattan to Newark, I’d totally be in the air with you. And it looked like you came in right over the runway, another bit of “neat”ness (the circling all the way around the airport is a nice tour, too). |
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Like I always say. It’s just money, I can make more. Great way to get time back into your schedule. |
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As the Shopping Queen, I am always looking for deals. So in case you are flying out of JFK on Delta you can get helicopter service for only $45. Here are the full details: http://news.delta.com/article_.....e_id=11150 |
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Ok, I live in Southern California so this would never be something I use, but there is a point when the convenience is worth the extra $$. If this was hundreds more, you would have to weigh it a bit more, but $30?!?!? Just skip a fancy dinner one night that week and you’re covered!! I’m all over it, if I ever could be! :( I’m stuck driving in SoCal traffic and snail speed! |
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There’s also great helicopter and seaplane services out of Seattle. I flew helicopter to Victoria, and seaplane back on one occasion. Not only was it a thrill ride in both directions, but it was actually very reasonably priced. Its great to know about the NY helicopter service. I’ll be looking that up next time I have to go cross town. Thanks for the heads up. Mark Brooks, SocialNetworkingWatch.com, 212-444-1636 |
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It’s well worth it just to tell people, “I’m just about to get on the helicopter at the airport.” |
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Your logic is DEFINITELY sound. I’m a helicopter operators and have been extolling the vritues of helicopter flight for quick cross-town trips for years — and not just to drum up customers. Why spend an hour or more in a car when a helicopter can get you to your destination in less than half the time? Time really IS money for many people and paying a helicopter operator instead of a car service might cost more, but it’ll definitely earn at least some of that money back in time saved. Glad you liked your flight! But don’t zoom the video back and forth so much next time! |
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Very cool…. It sounds like it was a real time saver as well as a great experience. Wish we had a service like that around here. |
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