Most New Yorkers associate BLADE with jetting the one percent to glamorous destinations like the Hamptons, Nantucket and Stowe via helicopter, seaplane or charter. Come summer you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone at Tutto Il Giorno or Sunset Beach who didn’t get out east by ride sharing a Blade Bounce helicopter. But behind the luxurious, vintage-inspired lounges and exclusive jet service, Blade’s master plan goes way beyond launching Wall Street players into the sky. Blade founder and chief executive officer Rob Wiesenthal wants to solve New York’s traffic crisis, and is aiming to do so by democratizing semi-private air travel.
On Monday, in its largest service expansion to date, Blade launched continuous helicopter service between Manhattan and John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) every weekday from 7:00am to 7:00pm at the price of $195 per leg. The trip is roughly the same cost as taking a luxury SUV, and at a five minute commute time rather than a two hour standstill on the Long Island Expressway. The shared flight service will be the largest urban mobility initiative in the United States, one Mr. Wiesenthal hopes will advance Blade’s mission of reducing traffic through accessibly-priced urban aviation.
A passenger exiting a BLADE Bounce helicopter
Blade
“We’re trying to solve a huge problem,” says Mr. Wiesenthal. “We’re dealing with an infrastructure in New York City that was designed hundreds of years ago. So you have three options. You can make the roads wider, you can go underground, which we already did, or you can go into the sky. That’s why Blade is evolving into an urban air mobility company. We fly more people in and out of city centers than any other company in the U.S. right now. We want to focus on the areas where we see friction. Our sweet spot is this under 50 mile, ‘get out of the congestion’ model. That’s the friction we want to address.”
Starting this week, Blade flights will operate between Blade Lounge West at the West 30th Street Heliport and JFK airport, with ground transportation included between the JFK helipad and all commercial terminals. For Mr. Wiesenthal, the hope is that continuous helicopter service at $195 per seat means fewer single-flyer helicopters dropping passengers solely in one direction, and a gentle way for the public to get a taste of next-generation urban air mobility.
Rob Wiesenthal
BLADE
“All of these people were spending all this money, and the helicopter charter world was a real B2B, strange, functionary experience,” Mr. Wiesenthal says. “It didn’t make sense in the world of Instagram. Blade exists because the average helicopter has 1.7 people and they spend $6,000 to fly 90 miles and they spend $3,000 to get to the airport. We got the price down to black car level. We’re also using the quietest rides in the city today, the Bell 206L-4.”
Additionally, BLADE and American Airlines recently announced that fliers who are connecting to or arriving from an American Airlines flight at JFK can be transferred from plane to helicopter using American Airlines Five Star Service. This enhancement provides a seamless, on-tarmac connection and can be purchased using the Blade app or directly from American Airlines.
Blade Lounge East
BLADE
Los Angeles is also getting in on the Blade treatment. The company is building the city’s first rooftop helicopter lounge across from the Staples Center to transport passengers directly to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The space will join New York’s other stylish, retro-inspired Blade lounges at East 34th Street, East 23rd Street, Wall Street and West 30th Street, the latter of which is just 1,000 feet from Hudson Yards, the new “city within a city” that houses such corporations as HBO, Warner Media, CNN and L’Oreal.
On-site at JFK, Blade will have a presence in the lobby of the soon-to-be-opened TWA Hotel, an ambitious re-imagination of Eero Saarinen’s iconic TWA Flight Center, originally built in 1962. Hotel guests can arrange for Blade flights to Manhattan or to any destination where Blade flies. They change depending on the season. Blade most recently offered passengers seats on its BLADEone service to Miami. The program seeks to be the white space between a first class ticket and $20,000 private air travel. A round trip ticket on a BLADEone costs about $2,250 from Westchester or Miami.
Mr. Wiesenthal only sees the need for urban aviation growing with every app-hailing car clogging city streets or new luxury residence going up. According to NYCdata, nearly 60 million passengers traveled between JFK and New York in 2017, up from 32 million in 2003. Mr. Wiesenthal’s plan is to eventually have next-generation eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircrafts herding commuters from nearby suburbs into New York for $30 a day. Until then, he’ll be working to lower prices and tackle highway congestion, and in the meantime, his Hamptons client remains loyal.
“The average Blade passenger comes to our lounge 45 minutes early to start the adventure,” Mr. Wiesenthal. On a Friday in the summer, our lounges can have over 100 people. It can get pretty wild.”