NYC Helitour Operators Forced To Accept 50% Flight Cut | Aviation International News

Regulations and Government

NYC Helitour Operators Forced To Accept 50% Flight Cut

Reductions will begin in April, with an elimination of all Sunday flights, followed by 20 percent cuts each in June and October and 10 percent in January.

Liberty Helicopters and four other operators offering helitours from Downtown Manhattan Heliport will have to halve the number of flights they conduct by January 2017, according to an executive order signed by New York City mayor Bill de Blasio this week. (Photo: Liberty Helicopters)

By Mark Huber • Contributor

February 4, 2016

On January 31 New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s (D) office announced a deal that would force the city’s four existing helitour operators using the downtown heliport (JRB) to curtail flights by 50 percent by January 1 next year. The reduction begins in April with an elimination of all Sunday flights, followed by further reductions of 20 percent each in June and October (the bookends of the busy summer/fall tourist season) from the baseline of the same months last year. The remaining 10 percent cut will come in January. The operators had been facing a total ban from the New York City Council, and the industry essentially viewed de Blasio’s compromise as a way of keeping the air-tour industry viable in the face of growing community opposition to anecdotal helicopter noise complaints.

“It was basically an ultimatum provided to the air-tour operators,” Helicopter Association International (HAI) president Matt Zuccaro told AIN. “The mayor runs the city of New York and he decided, ‘This is it. This is basically what I am offering you and I expect you to comply.’”

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