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This is just rebranded service. I was curious on launch day and it quoted me $222. Going direct to Blade is $195.
by apaprocki 7y ago
This is just rebranded service. I was curious on launch day and it quoted me $222. Going direct to Blade is $195.
- jumpingmice 7y agoAlso not exactly new. There has always been some company that will take you from NYC's heliports to its airports. Of course every one of these companies eventually went out of business, but some other group always stepped in to try to make it work.
- rolltiide 7y agoGoing out of business doesn't mean it didn't work. It might have made the owner lots of cash and they just stopped.
- dudus 7y agoSure, they all decided the business was a bit too successful to keep going. Sounds plausible
- rolltiide 7y agoHappens all the time. You put a half-assed attempt into finding a buyer and then go party in Ibiza in either scenario. Its the people not making money that imagine their one single idea in life is going to strike it big and they'll get married to it. The rest of us just make money, with the comfort that we now have enough money, or can make more with one of our monthly ideas, or can attract capital due to prior success or having made a profit for shareholders in the prior venture.
- sk5t 7y agoThere are, usually, ready buyers for a well-performing business--which is another word for a machine that turns money into more money. Furthermore, attaining some modest success does not tend to make business owners indifferent to the prospect of having a bit more success. Letting the business wither and die while one takes pills on Party Island is not the way it goes.
- rolltiide 7y agoIts no different than any profitable side project anybody here has ever concocted. You go and do something more fulfilling, sometimes more profitable. Even if that means just buying a bunch of treasury bonds on your nest egg of 30 million and going off on Party Island.
- jumpingmice 7y agoI like your upbeat attitude, but: """U.S. Helicopter Corporation (the "Company") has put substantially all of its operations and business activities on hold as of September 25, 2009 due to the Company's inability to obtain the financing necessary to continue to operate its business.""" https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1309140/000090901209001287/t305634.txt https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1309140/000090901209...
- rolltiide 7y agoI like the part where it clawed back the earnings of the founder and any expenses weren't usable as deductions on their taxes. Wait, thats not what I read at all. Anyway, why was a helicopter company publicly traded last decade? Thats funny, too bad they needed to rollover debt during a period of time when financing had dried up for everyone in 2009. Is a public company from 2009 the only data? I thought the whole premise of this subthread was that there were companies always filling the void.
- jumpingmice 7y agoThere has been an endless parade of these guys but only the one was public, in recent history. Obviously I am not aware of the disposition of the others. Maybe they were all roaring successes.
- tpmx 7y agoWhere does it depart from on Manhattan?
- alexhutcheson 7y agoThis pier near the Staten Island Ferry terminal: https://goo.gl/maps/oBWRfAkwQrWTTjGH8 https://goo.gl/maps/oBWRfAkwQrWTTjGH8
- dreamcompiler 7y agoIt's rebranded Heliflite, not rebranded Blade. So there are still the same number of carriers as before, and yeah, you're paying an extra $27 to book it with the Uber app. This is not very exciting. Edit: Uber is including the car on both ends, so that's an advantage. And their luggage allowance is 50 lbs vs. Blade's 25, so that's nice too.
- cwilkes 7y agoThere’s probably a reason for Blade’s 25 pound weight limit. Well move fast and all that.
- garmaine 7y agoIt's the same helicopter.
- reaperducer 7y agoMaybe a fuel issue. Perhaps Uber is paying the helicopter company extra to compensate for the increase fuel burned from its customer's heavier luggage. That's one way to set yourself apart in the market.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoUber probably just rand the numbers and figured out that everything over 28lb or something is a rare outlier so allowing 50lb makes for better marketing but costs little more than say 30lb. 50lb is decently heavy. The intersection of "people willing to pay $200 for a helicopter to save time" and "people willing to lug around 50lb" is probably reserved for a handful of specialized repair technicians (like the kind you fly out to somewhere) who carry specialty tools and expense the cost, a rounding error in any case.
- e12e 7y agoI think you'll find many Japanese tourists in that intersection.
- dev_dull 7y agoFactor in an Uber to and fro (included from what I can tell) and you’re probably coming out ahead with Uber.
- hw 7y agoI'd be interested to see some data on the entire trip duration including the uber X rides on both ends. Does Uber copter only make sense if you aren't stuck in traffic on th way to the helipad?
- ngoel36 7y agoAverage time savings e2e is usually at least 30m during rush hour (we are servicing Manhattan below Houston for now to the downtown Heliport) but up to an hour of time saved for some
- ngoel36 7y agoUber on both ends is definitely included!
- captncraig 7y agoI've paid more than that for a regular uber to lga, just getting stuck in traffic the wrong time of day.
- frutiger 7y agoI tried it last Saturday but it just said “None Available”.
- pininja 7y agoIt’s only available on weekdays.
- ngoel36 7y agoHey there, head of product for Uber Elevate here...it's important to note that our price is e2e including ground transportation on both ends, in addition to the 8-min, twin engine helicopter ride! Feel free to DM for more details
- jakobegger 7y agoThere are no DMs on HN...
- raphman 7y agoThere's an e-mail address in the user info...