Good riddance!

rosweed

We'll no longer have to suffer through the noise as these flights fly low over our house.

From the NY Times.

U.S. Helicopter Halts Shuttle Service to J.F.K. and Newark

By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Published: September 25, 2009

Scheduled helicopter service between two heliports in Manhattan and two major airports that serve New York City abruptly shut down on Friday.

U.S. Helicopter, which started up 3 ½ years ago, provided the first shuttle service since the 1980s from Manhattan to a commercial airport. It was charging as much as $159 each way for an eight-minute trip between one of the heliports — the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, near Wall Street, and the East 34th Street Heliport — and Kennedy International or Newark Liberty International Airports.

The company had been struggling financially and borrowing frequently at high rates of interest to cover its costs. In a message on its Web site, U.S. Helicopter said the “stand-down” would be temporary.

“We’re doing a financing, and the financing isn’t complete yet,” Donal McSullivan, a senior vice president of the company, said in a brief interview. “There’s no bankruptcy here. We’re just getting our act together.”

He responded to other questions by referring to the Web site message, which said, “We are temporarily halting all service as we regroup to add aircraft to our fleet and introduce new routes.” It added, “We plan to return to the skies of New York — a bigger and better airline — by late November.”

Last November, the service suffered a costly disruption at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport. That temporary shutdown, which lasted about five months, was caused by the city’s decision to hire a small company, FirstFlight, to succeed the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as the heliport’s operator. FirstFlight’s security plan for the heliport was not approved by the federal Transportation Security Administration for several weeks, and a stalemate over a rent increase prolonged the interruption.