5 ms·

Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US

63 points by prostoalex 7y ago

holy_city 7y ago
I'm an LA resident and there's not many kinds of businesses I think should be categorically banned, but helicopter transit is one of them. It's a public nuisance. I will regularly need to interrupt phone conversations to let a helicopter pass over, which is sometimes impossible when they decide to hover (though this is usually police helicopters).
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  The rest of the country gets by without lookie-loos enraptured by the latest highway chase.
  - cafard 7y ago
    Hah. Trying living in much of the Washington, DC area. The notion of a highway chase is mostly ridiculous here, but one has plenty of VIPs hurrying about by helicopter, and now and police searches.
- jngreenlee 7y ago
  Marketing idea...embrace it, offer free branded earplugs!
- jMyles 7y ago
  > (though this is usually police helicopters) I was astounded at the frequency, low altitude, and cacophony of police helicopter missions in Fresno when I spent about 6 weeks at @dmpayton's house. Like, WTF. It feels like they just want to remind you that they exist every couple hours. They were frequently low enough to be deafening or painful to the ears. On several occasions, I was able to feel the ground effect. One of them was so low (I estimate, based on my fairly humble amount of experience at drone flights, that it was around 80-100ft, perhaps briefly even lower than that) that it blew all of the leaves off of a tree (this was in November, when they had already turned). The next morning a bunch of neighborhood kids had a ball playing in the enormous pile of fresh crunchy leaves. I'm confident that the number of helicopter missions in Fresno can be reduced by 95% with no noticeable impact on public safety.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  It would be better to set a price per minute, depending on decibels and population density of the area.
  - evanlivingston 7y ago
    Why would that be better?
    - gbear605 7y ago
      Suppose that there is a helicopter overhead that you (and the five thousand people around you) would pay a dollar to get rid of. If you tax that flight $5000 and distribute it to the 5000 people who could hear that helicopter, then you get that dollar and you're just as happy as if that flight didn't exist. If you tax that flight $10,000, and distribute it to the 5000 people, then you get two dollars, making you happier than in the scenario where the flight didn't take place. Obviously, it's impossible to give that money to the people who heard the helicopter, but if you amortize all the flights in the area (say, all of LA) over all the people who live there, and reduce their taxes by that amount, then financially it works out the same. That still leaves some problems (complexity in setting a new tax on helicopter flights, differing value on not-having-helicopter-flights, difficulty of estimation, and so on), and many people want to discourage the mentality of "you can throw money at a problem to get rid of it", but conceptually it seems plausible for taxing the flight to be better than banning it entirely.
      - ryacko 7y ago
        That already exists, housing will cost less near airports, which in turn reduces property taxes or rents for people living near the airport.
      - holy_city 7y ago
        See I don't like this attitude towards tax incentives because you're missing the tree for the woods. This solution pays me for my inconvenience. It doesn't prevent the inconvenience in the first place or from happening again.
- aeternum 7y ago
  Many motorcycles are even louder, regularly setting off car alarms and we don't do anything about those.
tschwimmer 7y ago
Not sure the target market is for this since it's between airports. The Palo Alto to SFO one doesn't really help you get into the city because much of the traffic you'd have to drive through is between SFO and downtown. I guess they couldn't get rights to land somewhere downtown (after a bit of research it actually looks like there are no active heliports in SF except one at UCSF in the Dogpatch. Color me unsurprised.) Maybe this is useful if you are really really rich and want to skip some traffic between South Bay and the airport, but doesn't make much sense to me. The only thing that is moderately interesting to someone that's not a billionaire are the flights to Napa. At first I thought it was competing with some of the wine tasting buses that drive up and back but they only do 2 flights a week (Friday-Monday). That implies a weekend trip. I guess that make sense. Overall, seems not super useful. I guess I am not the target demographic.
- jngreenlee 7y ago
  Off topic but you may find this interesting: https://www.jsx.com/destinations https://www.jsx.com/destinations I hope we see more of this type of alternative options...opt-out of TSA (until its so big it gets attention), P2P, nimble, small-scale.
  - myrandomcomment 7y ago
    Need to fly the in-laws who are old up to the Bay Area for Xmas. Just checked the schedule for this. No flights flying on the 23rd. Alaska air it is.
    - icelancer 7y ago
      >> Now book flights through December 18, 2019
- justapassenger 7y ago
  > The Palo Alto to SFO one doesn't really help you get into the city because much of the traffic you'd have to drive through is between SFO and downtown I don't think they target PA<->SF traffic. This looks more like a last mile connection for people who want to get to Palo Alto, from outside of bay area. Given how many VCs are there, there's some potential market for it.
crappy-doo 7y ago
that's just what we need ... an enormous expansion of LITERALLY the most inefficient method of transportation.
myrandomcomment 7y ago
Just had a look. I am taking the wife to Napa on Sat. for an event and thought this would rock (vs 2-3 of driving). They do SFO to Napa but not on Sat. Oh well.
lozaning 7y ago
The pricing for this actually looks much more reasonable than I'd have expected. Last (and only time) I chartered a helicopter it was back to Hong Kong from Macau, and it ran me ~$850.00 USD. Palo Alto to Napa is "only" like $275 with these people.
- s0rce 7y ago
  Was the $850 for chartering whole helicopter or just for 1 seat on a shared ride.
jmugan 7y ago
I find it depressing that non-emergency helicopters are legal. The amount of noise they create to transport a few people ends up being a net negative on quality of life.
- julienchastang 7y ago
  Not to mention the huge carbon footprint they leave.
- delfinom 7y ago
  HAha. You think non-emergency helicopters are a problem? Wait until everyone and their mom is getting deliveries from thousands of drones. It'll be like in a soccer stadium with vuvuzelas outside.
chmullig 7y ago
Actually need to go PA to right near OAK to SFO within just a few hours in the next few days. If they had a 9:30pm OAK->SFO I would have probably booked it at that price. $215 compared to $100 with Lyft...
blendo 7y ago
If you're flying airport to airport, I'd expect an airplane (King Air for 6 pax, Cirrus SR22 for 2 pax) would be cheaper, quieter, and safer. Although maybe it's easier to get into SFO using a helicopter instead of a General Aviation airplane?
- aeternum 7y ago
  SFO would be much easier to get into since helicopters are typically cleared direct to the helipad without sequencing for a runway. The smaller airports would be no problem though.
foobarbecue 7y ago
Not to be confused with Boom. https://boomsupersonic.com/ https://boomsupersonic.com/
awad 7y ago
I've long held that 'entrepreneur-friendly' investors on the Peninsula should have some kind of Heli-shuttle that runs up the western-most side (aka follow 280 for the most part) of the Peninsula to San Francisco or sponsor some kind of vice-versa for city-based founders. Instead we're left with the alternative of wasting half a day or more running down and up. I get that you shouldn't hate the player but hate the game but in this case the game kind of sucks and that's just for local folks.
gadjo95 7y ago
I used it 2 times in Brazil (I think their first market) and really enjoy the whole process. I used it to go to the airport. Friday night with traffic, you need almost 2 hours to reach the airport from my home. Using that I could do it in 45mn door to door. (20mn ride to the helipad, 10mn wait, 15mn ride) You can also enjoy the view which is a big plus.

63 points by prostoalex 7y ago

I'm an LA resident and there's not many kinds of businesses I think should be categorically banned, but helicopter transit is one of them. It's a public nuisance. I will regularly need to interrupt phone conversations to let a helicopter pass over, which is sometimes impossible when they decide to hover (though this is usually police helicopters).

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
The rest of the country gets by without lookie-loos enraptured by the latest highway chase.
- cafard 7y ago
  Hah. Trying living in much of the Washington, DC area. The notion of a highway chase is mostly ridiculous here, but one has plenty of VIPs hurrying about by helicopter, and now and police searches.
jngreenlee 7y ago
Marketing idea...embrace it, offer free branded earplugs!
jMyles 7y ago
> (though this is usually police helicopters) I was astounded at the frequency, low altitude, and cacophony of police helicopter missions in Fresno when I spent about 6 weeks at @dmpayton's house. Like, WTF. It feels like they just want to remind you that they exist every couple hours. They were frequently low enough to be deafening or painful to the ears. On several occasions, I was able to feel the ground effect. One of them was so low (I estimate, based on my fairly humble amount of experience at drone flights, that it was around 80-100ft, perhaps briefly even lower than that) that it blew all of the leaves off of a tree (this was in November, when they had already turned). The next morning a bunch of neighborhood kids had a ball playing in the enormous pile of fresh crunchy leaves. I'm confident that the number of helicopter missions in Fresno can be reduced by 95% with no noticeable impact on public safety.
jessriedel 7y ago
It would be better to set a price per minute, depending on decibels and population density of the area.
- evanlivingston 7y ago
  Why would that be better?
  - gbear605 7y ago
    Suppose that there is a helicopter overhead that you (and the five thousand people around you) would pay a dollar to get rid of. If you tax that flight $5000 and distribute it to the 5000 people who could hear that helicopter, then you get that dollar and you're just as happy as if that flight didn't exist. If you tax that flight $10,000, and distribute it to the 5000 people, then you get two dollars, making you happier than in the scenario where the flight didn't take place. Obviously, it's impossible to give that money to the people who heard the helicopter, but if you amortize all the flights in the area (say, all of LA) over all the people who live there, and reduce their taxes by that amount, then financially it works out the same. That still leaves some problems (complexity in setting a new tax on helicopter flights, differing value on not-having-helicopter-flights, difficulty of estimation, and so on), and many people want to discourage the mentality of "you can throw money at a problem to get rid of it", but conceptually it seems plausible for taxing the flight to be better than banning it entirely.
    - ryacko 7y ago
      That already exists, housing will cost less near airports, which in turn reduces property taxes or rents for people living near the airport.
    - holy_city 7y ago
      See I don't like this attitude towards tax incentives because you're missing the tree for the woods. This solution pays me for my inconvenience. It doesn't prevent the inconvenience in the first place or from happening again.
aeternum 7y ago
Many motorcycles are even louder, regularly setting off car alarms and we don't do anything about those.

tschwimmer 7y ago

Not sure the target market is for this since it's between airports. The Palo Alto to SFO one doesn't really help you get into the city because much of the traffic you'd have to drive through is between SFO and downtown. I guess they couldn't get rights to land somewhere downtown (after a bit of research it actually looks like there are no active heliports in SF except one at UCSF in the Dogpatch. Color me unsurprised.) Maybe this is useful if you are really really rich and want to skip some traffic between South Bay and the airport, but doesn't make much sense to me. The only thing that is moderately interesting to someone that's not a billionaire are the flights to Napa. At first I thought it was competing with some of the wine tasting buses that drive up and back but they only do 2 flights a week (Friday-Monday). That implies a weekend trip. I guess that make sense. Overall, seems not super useful. I guess I am not the target demographic.

jngreenlee 7y ago
Off topic but you may find this interesting: https://www.jsx.com/destinations https://www.jsx.com/destinations I hope we see more of this type of alternative options...opt-out of TSA (until its so big it gets attention), P2P, nimble, small-scale.
- myrandomcomment 7y ago
  Need to fly the in-laws who are old up to the Bay Area for Xmas. Just checked the schedule for this. No flights flying on the 23rd. Alaska air it is.
  - icelancer 7y ago
    >> Now book flights through December 18, 2019
justapassenger 7y ago
> The Palo Alto to SFO one doesn't really help you get into the city because much of the traffic you'd have to drive through is between SFO and downtown I don't think they target PA<->SF traffic. This looks more like a last mile connection for people who want to get to Palo Alto, from outside of bay area. Given how many VCs are there, there's some potential market for it.

crappy-doo 7y ago

that's just what we need ... an enormous expansion of LITERALLY the most inefficient method of transportation.

myrandomcomment 7y ago

Just had a look. I am taking the wife to Napa on Sat. for an event and thought this would rock (vs 2-3 of driving). They do SFO to Napa but not on Sat. Oh well.

lozaning 7y ago

The pricing for this actually looks much more reasonable than I'd have expected. Last (and only time) I chartered a helicopter it was back to Hong Kong from Macau, and it ran me ~$850.00 USD. Palo Alto to Napa is "only" like $275 with these people.

s0rce 7y ago
Was the $850 for chartering whole helicopter or just for 1 seat on a shared ride.

jmugan 7y ago

I find it depressing that non-emergency helicopters are legal. The amount of noise they create to transport a few people ends up being a net negative on quality of life.

julienchastang 7y ago
Not to mention the huge carbon footprint they leave.
delfinom 7y ago
HAha. You think non-emergency helicopters are a problem? Wait until everyone and their mom is getting deliveries from thousands of drones. It'll be like in a soccer stadium with vuvuzelas outside.

chmullig 7y ago

Actually need to go PA to right near OAK to SFO within just a few hours in the next few days. If they had a 9:30pm OAK->SFO I would have probably booked it at that price. $215 compared to $100 with Lyft...

blendo 7y ago

If you're flying airport to airport, I'd expect an airplane (King Air for 6 pax, Cirrus SR22 for 2 pax) would be cheaper, quieter, and safer. Although maybe it's easier to get into SFO using a helicopter instead of a General Aviation airplane?

aeternum 7y ago
SFO would be much easier to get into since helicopters are typically cleared direct to the helipad without sequencing for a runway. The smaller airports would be no problem though.

foobarbecue 7y ago

Not to be confused with Boom. https://boomsupersonic.com/ https://boomsupersonic.com/

awad 7y ago

I've long held that 'entrepreneur-friendly' investors on the Peninsula should have some kind of Heli-shuttle that runs up the western-most side (aka follow 280 for the most part) of the Peninsula to San Francisco or sponsor some kind of vice-versa for city-based founders. Instead we're left with the alternative of wasting half a day or more running down and up. I get that you shouldn't hate the player but hate the game but in this case the game kind of sucks and that's just for local folks.

gadjo95 7y ago

I used it 2 times in Brazil (I think their first market) and really enjoy the whole process. I used it to go to the airport. Friday night with traffic, you need almost 2 hours to reach the airport from my home. Using that I could do it in 45mn door to door. (20mn ride to the helipad, 10mn wait, 15mn ride) You can also enjoy the view which is a big plus.