Is there anything worse than landing at Newark Airport at rush hour when you live in Brooklyn or the east side of Manhattan? Your options are either trekking to the AirTrain and then New Jersey Transit or sitting in a taxi for well over an hour and more than $100!
But fear not New York City travelers because Blade helicopters are here to get you off the plane and into Manhattan in 30 minutes.
I thought my boyfriend had officially lost it when he suggested we try Blade after our flight from LAX to Newark. My impression of Blade was that it’s for rich Manhattanites to charter sea planes to get them to the Hamptons. But Blade now offers booking by the seat from all NYC airports to Manhattan and it’s actually pretty affordable! For just $195 per person, you can book a seat in a helicopter right through their app.
Here’s how Blade works
Blade has representatives waiting at each airport so you can book in advance or wait until you land from your inbound flight. We chose to book seats a few days out because we weren’t sure if it would be an easy process.
Booking through the app, we selected a Blade flight time based on our inbound United Airways flight. Our booking was complete within minutes. I used a promo code from The Points Guy so I was able to get $50 off my Blade seat. My boyfriend and I booked our flights separately so we could each use the promo code and thus get more money off. I’m always gaming the system to get the best deal!
Blade helicopter flights are available about every 30 minutes. We landed at Newark at 2:30 p.m. so we booked a 3:30 p.m. helicopter. We wanted to give ourselves time to get off the inbound flight and grab our bags. Upon receipt, I noticed the Blade flight was scheduled to leave at 4:40 p.m. not 3:30 p.m. There was an hour of time built in for getting off the plane, collecting your bags, and traveling to the helicopter. We didn’t need to account for this ourselves! Blade had already thought of it for us.
To be honest, I was not happy! I wanted to get out of Newark as fast as possible. If the helicopter didn’t take off until 4:40 p.m., that really wasn’t much faster than taking NJ Transit. Unfortunately, changing Blade flights is not cheap. There is a change fee of at least $75 and when I was already paying $145 for the seat per person, I wasn’t looking to add more to that cost. We were going to have to suck it up and wait around.
But I was pleasantly surprised when we landed at Newark!
When we were still taxing to the gate at Newark, I received a text from a Blade representative that he was waiting at the baggage carousel. He was wearing a Blade lanyard, making it easy to find him.
The longest part of the process was waiting for a Blade SUV to pick us up at the curb outside of the terminal. Since it was Monday of Memorial Day weekend, there was nothing we could do to speed this up. Traffic was crazy!
After about 20 minutes, a black SUV covered in Blade signage pulled up. Airport personnel immediately swarmed us trying to help us with our bags. I think they thought we were mega rich and were looking for a tip. Jokes on them because Blade is actually affordable!
The SUV took us five minutes up the road to the private plane area of Newark Airport. When we arrived, a second Blade representative met us and took our bags right through the private terminal. It was basically an office building lobby with two check-in counters. We passed right by the counters and didn’t need to check-in with anyone. We walked directly onto the tarmac and right up to an idle helicopter. There was no waiting until 4:40 p.m. like our reservation had said!
The helicopter had seats for four passengers but we were the only two on the flight. I assume you have to wait for other patrons if there are others booked for the same flight time. Since there were only two of us, we got right onto the helicopter and had one of the quickest travel experiences I’ve ever had!
The pilot placed our bags in the back of the helicopter. Each passenger is allowed one, 25 pound bag, according to the Blade website. We each had about 35 pounds of baggage. Ahead of our flight, we called Blade to ask if it was OK. A representative assured us we would b fine and he was right! No one weighed our bags or made a comment about the amount that we had.
Once we boarded the helicopter, we had to wait about 3-5 minutes for traffic control to clear us. But we enjoyed having a moment to take photos!
I’ve been in a helicopter above Manhattan once before when I did FlyNYON. That was an amazing experience and a 15 minute flight instead of the five minutes like we had with Blade. But on the Blade helicopter, we did get some awesome views of Newark from above, the Statue of Liberty, lower Manhattan, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
I was able to justify paying $195 (or $145 with The Points Guy’s code) mostly because my boyfriend had never been on a helicopter before. We were kind of killing two birds with one stone. We got from the plane at Newark to east Manhattan in under 45 minutes and he got to ride in a helicopter. It sort of felt like a date for us!
When we landed at East 34th Street, we walked right into a Blade lounge and a representative followed with our bags. The lounge had areas to wait, a full bar, and a bathroom.
Would I fly Blade again?
Overall, I absolutely loved my experience with Blade. Being able to get from the plane to Manhattan in under 45 minutes is crazy and well worth the price tag! I travel a lot so using it often is not going to work for me and my bank account. But I will definitely consider using it again when I land at Newark Airport during rush hour!
Have you used Blade? Can you justify the price tag? Leave your thoughts in the comments!