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Comment by apaprocki | Hacker News Reader

This is just rebranded service. I was curious on launch day and it quoted me $222. Going direct to Blade is $195.

It'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.

There’s probably a reason for Blade’s 25 pound weight limit. Well move fast and all that.

It's the same helicopter.

Maybe 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.

Uber 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.

I think you'll find many Japanese tourists in that intersection.

Hey 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

There are no DMs on HN...

There's an e-mail address in the user info...

Also 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.

Going out of business doesn't mean it didn't work.

It might have made the owner lots of cash and they just stopped.

Sure, they all decided the business was a bit too successful to keep going. Sounds plausible

Happens 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.

There 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.

Its 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.

I 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/1309140/000090901209...

I 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.

There 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.

Factor in an Uber to and fro (included from what I can tell) and you’re probably coming out ahead with Uber.

I'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?

Average 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

Uber on both ends is definitely included!

I've paid more than that for a regular uber to lga, just getting stuck in traffic the wrong time of day.

I tried it last Saturday but it just said “None Available”.

It’s only available on weekdays.

Where does it depart from on Manhattan?

This pier near the Staten Island Ferry terminal: https://goo.gl/maps/oBWRfAkwQrWTTjGH8

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