Blade India's Bengaluru airport to city chopper service will start on October 10
You can now take a chopper from Bengaluru airport to the city and avoid traffic. The time for the commute will come down to just 15 minutes from the current 120 minutes.
Blade India has announced that it will start chopper services to ensure faster travel between Bengaluru and Kempegowda International Airport.
The services will begin on October 10, five times a week. The price, per seat, is Rs 3,250 (excluding taxes). The H125 DVG Airbus helicopter can fly with five to six passengers in one go between Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd airport and Bengaluru airport.
The company added with the chopper service, commuters will be able to replace the "120-minute ride" in traffic to Bengaluru airport with a “15-minute” air ride.
“Fliers can skip the painful 120-minute commute to HAL in traffic and opt for a quick 15-minute flight instead,” said the official website.
The company said it will add more routes subsequently. “Whitefield and Electronic City will be added,” it said.
Initially, Blade India will operate twice a day. The ride from Bengaluru to HAL airport is scheduled for 9 am. The return chopper will take off at 4:15 pm.
Blade India is a joint venture between BLADE Urban Air Mobility Inc, based in New York, and New Delhi-based Hunch Ventures.
The company has partnered with Airbus and Eve Air Mobility for fleet expansion to ramp up its short-haul mobility service in India.
As per the website, a similar service is in work at Goa airport. However, there is no timeline as to when these services will start.
Blade India kicked off its services by operating in Maharashtra between Mumbai, Pune and Shirdi.
The company aims to solve the “pain point of congestion by leveraging the air space. This would cut hours of road commute to minutes of flights.”
It connects “places through VTOL (vertical take-off and landing vehicles) such as helicopters and in the future, EVAs (electric vertical aircraft).”