Blade (company)

Blade is a crowdsourced, short-distance aviation company based in New York City. Blade allows users to plan their own crowdsourced flights or purchase a seat on pre-existing flights between Manhattan, the Hamptons, Nantucket, Mohegan Sun Casino, and major surrounding airports. All Blade flights are operated by FAA-certified and DOT-licensed air carriers.^[1][2]

History

Launch

Launching Memorial Day (May 26) of 2014, Blade began arranging flights to the Hamptons. Originally offering three routes, with service between Manhattan, Southampton, East Hampton, and Montauk, all operated by Liberty Helicopters.^[3]

Service expansion

In November 2014, Blade announced Blade Bounce,^[4] which arranges service between Manhattan's West 30th and East 34th Street Heliports and surrounding public and private metropolitan airports. Airports include New Jersey's Teterboro Airport, the largest private airport servicing New York City, John F. Kennedy International Airport, Newark International Airport, and LaGuardia Airport. Once requested, a helicopter is made available within 20 minutes. The trip itself takes approximately six minutes, versus roughly an hour by car.^[5]

Services

Customers have the ability to crowdsource a flight from Manhattan to any destination currently serviced by Blade, or buy single seats on flights to the Hamptons and Mohegan Sun Casino.^[6]

Operation

Passengers must download the Blade app to their iOS or Android device, sign up for an account, and enter additional information such as a valid phone number and credit card details. When a passenger wants to fly, he or she opens the app and selects an existing flight to join at a time that works for them. If no times work for the passenger, he or she can crowdsource their own flight at a more convenient time; any remaining seats on a crowdsourced flight may then go on to be sold to other flyers through the digital community Blade provides in-app.

Promotions

Over the 2014 July 4th Weekend, Blade partnered with Uber to power Uberchopper, a service that allowed Uber users to book a helicopter through their mobile application.^[7][8]

During the Fall and Spring holiday travel seasons Blade partnered with JetSmarter, a mobile-based private jet charter company, to offer its user base free jet-side helicopter transfers between Manhattan and Teterboro Airport.^[9]

Reception

In May 2014, Blade was featured and demoed on CNBC’s Squawkbox program with Carl Quintanilla and Robert Frank.^[10] Blade was again featured on Squawkbox in November with the launch of its Blade Bounce service.^[11][12][13]

In March of 2015, The New York Observer published a feature on the Blade Lounge at the East 34th Street Heliport, calling it a “a Secret, Luxurious Speakeasy Under the FDR”.^[14]

Opposition

There has been pushback within the Hamptons community against increased air traffic at the local East Hampton Airport. Opponents claim that noise levels have increased as a direct result of increased air traffic.

East Hampton Airport has long been owned and operated by the local municipality. This detail has caused a significant rift in the community, as politicians and residents fight over whether to accept Federal Aviation Administration funds or not. Recently, the Town of East Hampton reached an agreement with the FAA to self-fund the airport, allowing them to impose stricter rules on air traffic.^[15]

On April 16, The Town of East Hampton voted to adopt strict laws limiting air traffic in and out of the East Hampton Airport. Beginning summer of 2015, there will be a ban on all flights from 11:00PM to 7:00AM. Any aircraft that falls under the Town's classification of “noisy” (aircraft with an Effective Perceived Noise in Decibels EPNdB approach level of 91.0 or greater) will be forbidden from taking off or landing from 8:00PM to 9:00AM all year and will be limited to one landing and one takeoff per week. There is currently a lawsuit against the FAA for its part in waiving grant assurances that allowed the Town to enact these rules.^[16]

References