First off, I would like to congratulate everyone who’s recently signed up to have a chopper take you to and from work for the extremely reasonable fee of $200 a day. According to Liberty Helicopters, which begins weekday service next month, there’s been a huge interest in the service, which is heartening.

Liberty has already been approached by 150 potential clients after about a month of advertising, Patrick Day, a pilot and vice president of charter marketing, said in an interview in the cabin of a twin-engine Dauphin at the carrier’s base in Linden, New Jersey. The interest may reflect how far Wall Street has bounced back, said Robert Grotell, an independent transportation consultant in Port Jefferson, New York.

“When an economy turns sour, corporate air transportation seems to be one of the first things that’s affected, and it’s usually one of the last things to come back,” Grotell said in a telephone interview. Corporate clients are responsible for about one-third of helicopter traffic in the New York area, which slid as much as 30 percent in 2009 from a year earlier, he said. “Maybe the economic turnaround is well under way,” Grotell said.

Continue reading »