You might remember that last year on-demand car service app Uber had introduced a $3000 on-demand helicopter ride to the Hampton beaches in Long Island from New York. The UberChopper service for the Hamptons was made available only for the July 4th weekend as a part of the American Independence Day celebrations. But now there is another smartphone app that will allow users to book a helicopter ride from New York to the Hamptons. Rather than calling a reservation center and dealing with helicopter charter companies, the users of the Blade app can book a ride with a couple of taps on their iPhone. The iPhone app helps its users to reserve a seat on an already-scheduled flight for $575.
Incase all the seats on the scheduled flights are already booked the Blade app gives the option to book a helicopter for $3000 and crowd-source the remaining seats. That’s not all, if the chopper fails to take-off due to bad weather or some other issue, Blade will shuttle you out east in a Maserati at no cost and give you a credit for your next Blade helicopter trip. The Blade’s model of booking seats on a flight using a smartphone app is very similar to that of Uber’s; which makes it more like an Uber of helicopters. But the creators of Blade say it’s actually the “Beats of aviation” — that is, less sharing economy, more streaming of a luxury service to the currently plane-less. But the company doesn’t have its own fleet of choppers either. The Blade choppers belong to fleet operator Liberty Helicopters. The company plans to expand soon and offer its services on Boston-to-Cape Cod, L.A.-to-Las Vegas, and possibly European routes.
[Via – Nymag]
