New York Airways had one notable accident: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/may-16-1977-hel...

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/helicopter-crash-timelin...

As for the concept, it's Uber for helicopters. As long as there is a need (I don't and would never live in New York so I have no idea what the demand for this is) then it may very well be successful.

It's hard to compare cars and helicopters. From the article:

"Between 2005 and 2009, there was an annual average of 1.44 fatalities (PDF) per 100,000 flying hours in nonmilitary helicopters. Over the same period, there were 13.2 traffic fatalities per 100,000 population in the United States annually. Since the average American spends around 780 hours per year (PDF) in the car, that means the fatality rate per 100,000 hours of driving time is just 0.017. Based on hours alone, helicopters are 85 times more dangerous than driving."

The annual risk of dying in the helo crash (taking the numbers from above) is 12 minutes flying RT * 12 RT/year = 144 minutes per year / 60 mins/hr * 1.44/100K or a risk of dying of 3.456 per 100K years. (overstated as the figure is fatalities per 100K hours, not fatal accidents per 100K).

The annual risk of dying in a car crash if you took that instead is 240 minutes * 12 RT/yr / 60 mins/hr * 0.017 = 0.816 per 100K years.

Over 50 years, your life expectancy has been shortened by about 12 hours. (This is the math I'm least sure about.)

Over that same 50 years, the helo has saved you 2000 hours of your life, for a net addition of almost months of life (assuming, as I do, you derive no value from the car ride to the airport).

Said differently, each roundtrip saves you about 3 hours of your life, plus gives you a fantastic view of the city on the way...

If you really can't use a laptop in a car there is still, getting something to eat, making a phone call, or even just listening to music.

Big question here of what's being measured. If this includes search and rescue helicopters, fire fighting, weather, and similar, then it's not at all comparable to routine transportation driving.

There's also a bunch of complexity about what happens to helicopter safety rates when that kind of flying becomes routine. Maybe it'll get way safer, because there are so many less risky flights, maybe it'll get more dangerous because pilots get complacent.

fwiw, i walk to work, so i hardly drive at all. If i was in a situation that i could take the flight, i'd take the flight.

Could just mean that pilots can be irrational too.

                                       Air      Car
    Miles driven                        40      450
    Risk (millionths)                 0.60     6.75

edit: that was a shallow misreading of the data. But the end concludes that air travel is roughly slightly less than an order of magnitude safer.

Per trip would be interesting Not to mention, a minor crash or serious failure in a car is usually a walk away event. A minor crash or serious failure in a plane or chopper is usually fatal. Its okay if my car breaks down on the interstate. Its not okay if my plane does over the ocean, like Air France 447.

I'm not saying air travel is unsafe. I just think we're selling the point incorrectly.

(That's one of the advantages of TSA PreCheck - not only are there fewer people in line, but the people who are in line are frequent flyers who tend to move fast.)

Google Maps tells me Manhattan to JFK Airport is a 32 kilometre taxi ride and takes three hours, plus it takes two hours to clear security at the airport.

I'm a little astounded by those numbers. Five hours to get from the couch at home to the airport. Astounding. I'm through the airport and in Melbourne city in under 2 hours.

I would definitely pay $100 to reduce that. I think $100 helicopter flights is something I would do with friends just to get a drink across town occasionally. How novel!

Compare that to anywhere in Australia where you can be sure security won't take more than 10 minutes - you can arrive at the airport with 45 minutes before your flight and still be waiting 20 minutes after you check in and pass security before you board.

I'm not too big of a fan of the AirTram + Long Island Railway (LIRR) route, which ends up at one of the major train stations, has on outside terminal (not great in the winter and slow with a lot of things to remember to do), but is about half price of that.

I've recently started doing Penn Station -> Jamaica w/ LIRR -> AirTrain, it's miles better than subway and almost preferable to car if you're paying for the car.

The subway to JFK is cheaper, but most people who live in Manhattan and can afford to fly semi-regularly are going to spring for a taxi.

On the other hand if they're too successful maybe the company they're chartering from could decide to offer service themselves and cut them out

That said, someone's got to pay the mortgage on a $2.6 million ship, plus fuel and maint and salaries etc etc.

Gotham Air is not a direct air carrier but rather provides technology and information services enabling consumers to obtain aircraft charter and shared aircraft charter services from FAA certified and DOT registered air carriers who exercise operational control over all flights .

Interesting thought that the picture of the heli contradicts that (says "Gotham Air" on the side). That's no small point actually. Gives someone who doesn't read the fine print the idea that they do operate the aircraft. I understand why they do that but it is a bit deceptive.

Original: http://hereandtherewithoutacare.com/wp-content/gallery/new-y...

Faked, from Gotham Air site: http://static.wixstatic.com/media/b49883_4bfd352941a043ba83c...

http://www.ryanair.com/doc/advertise/RyanairMediaCard.pdf

Likewise if there was an accident someone would have to say they relied on that information and was mislead. Unlikely (especially in the case of death how do you prove that?). Plus it is common practice to operate like this by similar parties.

Here is a similar company for jets:

http://www.bluestarjets.com/

Note how they do the same thing but don't have any logos on the jets.

http://www.bluestarjets.com/?page=company-payment-legal

My guess is that the "Gotham Air" will disappear from the home page picture.

I have no idea if Gotham plans to actually operate that way, but I'd be shocked if there were actually a legal problem if they did.