Blade, the helicopter charter company, was founded 10 years ago as a way for travelers traveling between New York and the Hamptons to avoid car traffic.
In May it will introduce a new service, the Hamptons Streamliner, which, starting at $195 a ticket, will take passengers to destinations on eastern Long Island aboard… a bus.
Like Blade’s helicopters, whose seats start at $1,025, its buses are marketed as a luxury option for Hamptons visitors. Seats can recline up to 45 degrees and passengers will be offered free snacks such as espresso martinis, PopUp Bagels and Sweetgreen salads as they head from Manhattan to stops in Southampton, Bridgehampton and East Hampton via the Long Island Expressway.
Other amenities include a call button on each seat to attract the attention of an attendant who can bring passengers a snack, drink, hot towel or cashmere blanket. Those who opt for one of the seven premium seats, which cost $275, can also travel with a pet (for an additional fee).
The 19-passenger carriages, of course, will be subject to the same hours-long traffic jams and delays that any vehicle can encounter on the highway, making the onboard benefits a major draw, said Roisin Branch, director of marketing. by Blade. “This level of service is commensurate with what you would see in private aviation,” he said.
Ms. Branch said Blade leaders saw a gap in the market between more affordable Hamptons bus services, such as the 54-seat Jitney or the 30-seat Ambassador (whose tickets start at $41 and $64) and modes of More expensive transportation such as helicopters, which have sparked growing complaints from residents of New York City and the Hamptons about noise and other disturbances.
The Hamptons Streamliner is a partnership between Blade and Jet, a high-end coach service between New York and Washington, DC, which supplied the two buses used for the new transit service. (Each bus costs about $1 million to purchase and equip, said Chad Scarborough, founder of Jet.) Operations will begin just before Memorial Day weekend and run through the fall.
The Hamptons-bound buses will pick up passengers at a single location in Manhattan: Hudson Yards, the neighborhood of luxury apartment buildings, shops and office towers occupied by technology companies like Meta and financial firms like BlackRock and Point 72. The buses that Returning to Manhattan they will stop at an East Side location before ending their route at Hudson Yards.
“We wanted to make it an express,” Branch said. “The fewer stops, the more important it will be to the community we serve.”
He added that Hudson Yards was chosen as the Streamliner’s departure point in hopes that some people who work there headed to the Hamptons will opt for a bus ride instead of driving or reserving a chauffeur-driven car.
Bianca D’Alessio, 31, a real estate broker in New York, has traveled on Blade helicopters and Jitney buses to the Hamptons. Ms. D’Alessio, who appears on “Selling the Hamptons,” a real estate-focused reality show on the streaming service Max, described the Jitney as “no-frills” and said the “smaller bus experience” it offers More luxury might appeal to certain cyclists.
But other travelers like Chloe Hechter, 23, who lives in New York and whose parents have a home in the Hamptons, saw less value in splurging on a more luxurious way to sit in traffic.
Hechter, a recent graduate of Syracuse University, has occasionally taken the Ambassador buses, which offer passengers free wine and coffee, but said she preferred to take the Jitney buses because they are less expensive.
“If I want to spend a summer weekend there, I’d rather go the easiest and cheapest way,” he said.