Got a Private Helicopter in East Hampton? It Will Probably Cost You a Bit More

If you like flying your chopper or jet out to East Hampton, it’s going to cost you a little extra this year.

One thing is for certain, flying into the Hamptons is a pricey venture for private residents. The Town of East Hampton is proposing to increase the cost of airport landing fees approximately 30 percent this year, and the proposal is gaining a lot of support.

The increase is in response to the higher cost of operating the airport in East Hampton. Helicopters and private jets will be hit with the biggest increase, some of the landing fees will go as high as $750 to land.

While some are saying that the increase is designed to help pay for the costs of running the airport, others are hoping that the increases will turn people AWAY from flying choppers into the Hamptons. A group of residents near the airport known as the Quiet Skies Coalition, is hugely in favor of increasing fees, with the logic being that the higher the fees go, the more people will get priced out.

The new increases being proposed will be in line with New York City airport landing fees.

In my opinion, these increases will not affect how many people fly into the airport. People who fly choppers and jets have insane money. Some people who fly into the Hamptons take three separate choppers, one for themselves, one for the kids and one for the nanny. It’s that ridiculous.

With that being said, the Quiet Skies Coalition should be careful what they wish for. If they are successful in stopping planes and choppers from flying into the Hamptons, numerous business and people will be affected HUGELY. Everything from the employees that work at the airport, to the employees who work directly for the individuals here in the Hamptons. It would be a disaster for the town to turn the airport into a library. And I’d bet that a lot of the members of the Quiet Skies Coalition work directly or indirectly for people who have this kind of wealth. Everybody seems to understand this, but the QSC just doesn’t want to admit that because they are tired of hearing the roar of planes all summer long, and I get that, but all that can be done about it is deliberately have flights change flight patterns from New York City to East Hampton on a rotating basis, so that the noise is spread around.

We want people who have the means to fly privately here. Let’s not forget that. And furthermore, people who live really close to the airport shouldn’t have moved there in the first place if they didn’t like airport noise. The fact that there is noise near the airport is common sense. Sometimes when I hear complaints about it, it seems as crazy to me as an oceanfront homeowner complaining about the sound of waves crashing.