There’s Now a Helicopter Service That Will Get You to Any NYC Airport in 5 Minutes

An early evening flight is a New York City nightmare. The idea of getting trapped in rush-hour traffic on the way to the airport strikes fear into the most steadfast hearts. The minutes tick away, your palms start to get sweaty, you contemplate jumping ship and just walking the rest of the way down the highway because it seems faster.

But a helicopter company will now let you — quite literally — fly right over the inconvenience.

BLADE launched five-minute helicopter flights from Manhattan to JFK airport in March. And now the service has announced that it will fly regular service to all New York City airports, including Newark and LaGuardia. Never again need you panic while trapped in traffic.

“Since expanding our continuous flight service between Manhattan and JFK, we are seeing faster than expected adoption by people choosing to fly to the airport rather than driving,” Rob Wiesenthal, BLADE’s CEO, said in a statement. “It has become immediately apparent that fliers want the flexibility to fly between Manhattan and, not only JFK, but all area airports.”

Although, of course, it does not come cheap. The service costs $195 per seat per flight. Flights are bookable from the BLADE app and run all day, from about 6 a.m. until about 6 p.m.

Flights to Newark operate from the East 34th Street helipad, flights to LaGuardia take off from Wall Street and flights to JFK leave from West 30th Street. Flight time is about five minutes, although travelers should obviously figure in time to get to and from the helipad on either end of the journey.

If you’re flying out of one of the smaller airports (like Teterboro or Westchester), you can charter a flight through BLADE.