- Blade is an app that lets people in New York City, Southern California, and the San Francisco area book chartered, private, or shared short-distance helicopter flights to places like airports and the Hamptons.
- Blade's new Continuous service operates every half-hour between Manhattan and the New York-area airports. Unlike the regular Blade service, which can cost in the high-hundreds of dollars, the company offers a flat rate of $195. You can use the promo code "OFFER" on your first ride to bring it down to $120.
- Despite valid criticisms of helicopter traffic in New York, including noise and environmental impact, I've always wanted to try a flight above the city - so I took advantage of the promo offer before a recent trip from the JFK airport. Here's what it was like.
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When Blade Urban Air Mobility - stylized as BLADE, or simply Blade - launched in May 2014, the company styled itself as the "Uber of helicopters." The company helped facilitate private short-distance air
The Uber metaphor was apt. Blade didn't own the aircraft or operate the flights itself. It served as a broker to connect customers with third-party, licensed owner-operators, while setting the price and taking a commission.
Since its launch, Blade has expanded to Southern California and the San Francisco area.
For New York-area customers, the metaphor continues to apply - earlier this year, Blade launched a new service that's akin to Uber Pool.
Blade Continuous is a shared flight - a helicopter pool - that runs every half-hour between New York's West 30th Street heliport and the three area airports - JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark.
While chartering a helicopter flight through Blade can cost in the high hundreds to even thousands of dollars, Blade Continuous has a flat rate of $195 per person - in a background conversation with Business Insider, CEO Rob Wiesenthal described it as still being a premium product, but one that's accessible to a much larger base of potential users.
For those who may not be interested in paying that much when heading to the airport - you can get to JFK from Manhattan for as little as a Metrocard swipe plus $5 - but still want to try it, there's a promo code - "OFFER" - that brings the cost down to $120, or a little more than an Uber or Lyft during rush hour.
I've lived in New York City and the surrounding area for most of my life, and have always thought it would be fun to fly in one of the helicopters that criss-crosses the city. So, before a recent weekend trip to Portland, Oregon, I decided to splurge and give it a try.
To skip to the bottom line - it was the most fun I've ever had on a trip to the airport. We made it from midtown Manhattan to the airport in just nine minutes.
Read on to see what it's like to ride a Blade helicopter - from booking to touch-down.