Helicopter taxi apps offer escape from traffic-choked megacities
SINGAPORE (AFP) – Within minutes of using an app to book a ride, Agostino Fernandes was looking down on lush greenery from a helicopter taxi high above Bangalore – one of several Uber-style chopper services taking off to help commuters tackle increasingly congested megacities.
In under 30 minutes – a quarter of the time it would have taken from downtown Bangalore by road – Fernandes was strolling through Kempegowda International Airport to his gate.
“It's much better than the usual car or taxi because it saves time,” he told AFP.
“And for a city like Bangalore, which they call India's green capital because of the parks and gardens, you get a very nice view.”
From New York to Jakarta, chopperhailing services have been taking off to help commuters beat the traffic chaos.
Private helicopter charters have been available for decades – at a price – but the latest services are far cheaper and more accessible to the public, allowing anyone with a smartphone and a credit card to order a ride with relative ease.
Sameer Rehman, Asia-Pacific managing director of Bell Helicopter, said chopper manufacturers were predicting more such services in traffic-clogged parts of Southeast Asia in particular, describing it as an “important testbed” for the wider region.
“That can be replicated throughout other cities and countries in the AsiaPacific,” he told AFP at a conference in Singapore.
Another similar service was recently launched in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, a chaotic metropolis of over 10 million people, which suffers some of the world's worst jams.
Operated by Whitesky Aviation, Helicity now has about 60 customers each month, mostly from the business world. Its services include a 20-minute ride from Jakarta airport into the heart of the city for six million rupiah ($430) for up to four people, as well as a 45-minute flight from Jakarta to Bandung, 150 kilometers (90 miles) away, from 14 million rupiah. While it offers an alternative to sitting in traffic for hours and is cheaper than private charters in the past, the prices are nevertheless out of reach for most people in Jakarta, where the monthly minimum wage is about $250.
And it has not all been easy going for Whitesky in recent times – one of their helicopters crashed last month on Indonesia's central Sulawesi island as it flew over a mining area, killing one person on the ground and injuring four passengers.
In Bangalore, one of India's most congested megacities, HeliTaxii launched in March, offering a seat in a helicopter from the airport to IT industrial park Electronic City for about $65 per person – the same journey that Fernandes took on launch day. In Brazil's Sao Paulo, the app Voom offers a 30-kilometre helicopter ride to the airport for about $150 – 10 times cheaper than private charters in the past – while in New York, a chopperhailing service ferries people between downtown and surrounding airports.