
Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US - prostoalex
https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/26/airbus-owned-voom-brings-its-on-demand-helicopter-service-to-the-u-s-with-sf-bay-area-launch/
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tschwimmer
Not sure the target market is for this since it's between airports. The Palo
Alto to SFO one doesn't really help you get into the city because much of the
traffic you'd have to drive through is between SFO and downtown. I guess they
couldn't get rights to land somewhere downtown (after a bit of research it
actually looks like there are no active heliports in SF except one at UCSF in
the Dogpatch. Color me unsurprised.) Maybe this is useful if you are really
really rich and want to skip some traffic between South Bay and the airport,
but doesn't make much sense to me.

The only thing that is moderately interesting to someone that's not a
billionaire are the flights to Napa. At first I thought it was competing with
some of the wine tasting buses that drive up and back but they only do 2
flights a week (Friday-Monday). That implies a weekend trip. I guess that make
sense.

Overall, seems not super useful. I guess I am not the target demographic.

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justapassenger
> The Palo Alto to SFO one doesn't really help you get into the city because
> much of the traffic you'd have to drive through is between SFO and downtown

I don't think they target PA<->SF traffic. This looks more like a last mile
connection for people who want to get to Palo Alto, from outside of bay area.
Given how many VCs are there, there's some potential market for it.

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tschwimmer
Checking Google Maps:

1) SFO to Downtown PA: 30 mins 2) Palo Alto Airport to Downtown PA: 15 minutes

for $250 one way? Better be some pretty good VCs/Lawyers to pay an extra ~$400
round trip.

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cornellwright
I've flown a Cessna 182 into KPAO from Livermore for a couple of VC meetings.
It takes about 20 minutes (mostly taxiing time). At rush hour getting between
downtown and the airport (and waiting for the Lyft to get to the airport)
usually took longer than the flight. Still better than a 2 hour drive though.

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holy_city
I'm an LA resident and there's not many kinds of businesses I think should be
categorically banned, but helicopter transit is one of them. It's a public
nuisance. I will regularly need to interrupt phone conversations to let a
helicopter pass over, which is sometimes impossible when they decide to hover
(though this is usually police helicopters).

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jessriedel
It would be better to set a price per minute, depending on decibels and
population density of the area.

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holy_city
I don't think that making a luxury service more expensive will discourage use,
unless we can make each flight cost tens of thousands of dollars.

I'd rather just ban assholery than create a steep asshole tax. It doesn't
bother me that a few rich people will have to wait in traffic like everyone
else (or better - stop traveling for cross-town meetings and take a phone
call!).

Leave low altitude flight to emergency services.

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jessriedel
The point isn't to discourage use per se. The point is to force the entity
producing negative externalities to pay for the damages they are incurring. If
the business is still economical to run after these costs, it should be run,
and the money can be kept to reduce taxes, pay for other noise abatement, etc.

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nickserv
If it's agreed that the behavior is damaging, why allow it? If you take the
slippery slope down, then you could simply pay off any negative behavior like
rape or murder.

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jessriedel
The slipper slope goes in the opposite direction too. All behavior causes
damages (negative externalities) to someone somewhere, but we don't outlaw all
behavior.

There is a pretty well developed theory of econ & law of when it makes sense
to have financial penalties and when it makes sense to have criminal
penalties. I don't think I could do justice to it in this comment box, but
suffice it to say, "only criminal penalties, no financial ones" is wrong.

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jmugan
I find it depressing that non-emergency helicopters are legal. The amount of
noise they create to transport a few people ends up being a net negative on
quality of life.

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delfinom
HAha. You think non-emergency helicopters are a problem? Wait until everyone
and their mom is getting deliveries from thousands of drones. It'll be like in
a soccer stadium with vuvuzelas outside.

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lozaning
The pricing for this actually looks much more reasonable than I'd have
expected. Last (and only time) I chartered a helicopter it was back to Hong
Kong from Macau, and it ran me ~$850.00 USD. Palo Alto to Napa is "only" like
$275 with these people.

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s0rce
Was the $850 for chartering whole helicopter or just for 1 seat on a shared
ride.

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myrandomcomment
Just had a look. I am taking the wife to Napa on Sat. for an event and thought
this would rock (vs 2-3 of driving). They do SFO to Napa but not on Sat. Oh
well.

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awad
I've long held that 'entrepreneur-friendly' investors on the Peninsula should
have some kind of Heli-shuttle that runs up the western-most side (aka follow
280 for the most part) of the Peninsula to San Francisco or sponsor some kind
of vice-versa for city-based founders.

Instead we're left with the alternative of wasting half a day or more running
down and up. I get that you shouldn't hate the player but hate the game but in
this case the game kind of sucks and that's just for local folks.

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gadjo95
I used it 2 times in Brazil (I think their first market) and really enjoy the
whole process. I used it to go to the airport. Friday night with traffic, you
need almost 2 hours to reach the airport from my home. Using that I could do
it in 45mn door to door. (20mn ride to the helipad, 10mn wait, 15mn ride) You
can also enjoy the view which is a big plus.

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blendo
If you're flying airport to airport, I'd expect an airplane (King Air for 6
pax, Cirrus SR22 for 2 pax) would be cheaper, quieter, and safer. Although
maybe it's easier to get into SFO using a helicopter instead of a General
Aviation airplane?

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aeternum
SFO would be much easier to get into since helicopters are typically cleared
direct to the helipad without sequencing for a runway. The smaller airports
would be no problem though.

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chmullig
Actually need to go PA to right near OAK to SFO within just a few hours in the
next few days. If they had a 9:30pm OAK->SFO I would have probably booked it
at that price. $215 compared to $100 with Lyft...

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foobarbecue
Not to be confused with Boom.
[https://boomsupersonic.com/](https://boomsupersonic.com/)

