Areas served → United States → New York

Helicopter charter in New York

New York is the most rule-bound helicopter market in the United States, and most of the frustration people have booking here comes from not knowing which of those rules is about to reshape their flight.

Start with the geography, because it explains everything else. Manhattan has three heliports — the Downtown Manhattan Heliport on the East River at Pier 6, the East 34th Street Heliport, and the West 30th Street Heliport on the Hudson. Between them they carry everything: airport transfers to Newark, JFK and Teterboro, corporate shuttles to the Hamptons and Connecticut, and sightseeing. Which one you use is not a preference. It is decided by what kind of flight you are on.

Above them sits a piece of airspace with its own subpart of the federal rules. The New York Class B Airspace Hudson River and East River Exclusion Special Flight Rules Area, established in 2009 and codified at 14 CFR Part 93 Subpart W, sets out exactly how aircraft move through the river corridors. In the Hudson exclusion, traffic flies at or above 1,000 feet up to the Class B floor, at or below 140 knots, southbound down the west shore and northbound up the east shore. The East River exclusion is tighter still: between the south-western tip of Governors Island and the northern tip of Roosevelt Island, only seaplanes and airplanes with air traffic control authorisation may operate. This is why your pilot’s routing looks oddly specific, and why "can we go over Central Park" has a short answer.

Then there is the tourist agreement, which is the single most misunderstood thing about flying here. In 2016 the city and the operators based at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport agreed to halve sightseeing flights from 60,000 a year to 30,000, end Sunday tourist flights from that heliport, stop flying over land, keep clear of Governors Island, and turn back before the George Washington Bridge on Hudson routes. If you are booking a sightseeing flight in New York and expecting to hover over midtown on a Sunday afternoon, that is not a matter of paying more — it does not exist.

Transfers are the healthier half of this market and are unaffected by the tour rules. Manhattan to JFK, Newark or Teterboro is a matter of minutes against an hour or more of traffic, and the aircraft doing it are typically twin-engine — the flying is over water and dense city, which is where a second engine stops being a luxury and starts being the reason the flight is allowed to happen the way it does.

Weather is the other constraint, and in New York it is mostly visibility rather than wind. Low cloud on the rivers, summer thunderstorms and winter fog all move flights, and the corridors have minimum weather conditions of their own. Build a buffer into anything time-critical, and be suspicious of anyone who guarantees a departure time in February.

What people actually fly here

• Airport transfer. Manhattan to JFK, Newark, LaGuardia or Teterboro — minutes against an hour of traffic.
• Hamptons and Connecticut. The summer weekend run, and the reason August slots go early.
• Skyline sightseeing. Over water only, from the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, and not on Sundays.
• Corporate shuttle. Repeat legs between Manhattan and a regional office or plant.

Landing sites on record

Straight from the OurAirports dataset we import, unedited. Being on this list means the site exists, not that you can land on it — most are private, hospital or public-safety pads, and use depends on the site owner's permission and the operator's authorisation.

Sites recorded in this area: 26.

The facts, with sources

Sources

1. OurAirports landing-site data (public domain), as imported here
2. eCFR — 14 CFR Part 93 Subpart W, New York SFRA
3. Federal Register — establishment of the Hudson River and East River Exclusion SFRA
4. FAA — Federal Aviation Administration

Facts on this page last checked 2026-08-12. Something wrong or out of date? Tell us and we will correct it and note when.

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