With the serene beaches of the Hamptons soon 3,500 feet below his box-fresh white sneakers, Rob Wiesenthal, the chief executive of Blade, a by-the-seat helicopter charter company, boasted how the service could slice above the slog of the Long Island Expressway. A New Yorker can go from Manhattan to East Hampton in 40 minutes, better than the expressway’s two-and-a-half hours — or sometimes six — with traffic.
“This is a game changer,” Mr. Wiesenthal said. Except his noise-canceling headset was not working, and not a word could be heard over the roar. He found another. “This is a game changer,” he said again, into the mic.
Loud, fast, pay-per-seat helicopters have indeed changed commuting to the Hamptons for a growing number of people wealthy enough to spend upward of $700 one way for the convenience of zipping to the beach. But as more of the aircraft whir over the dunes, they have also changed a way of life on the ground, according to some people who live beneath their flight path. They say the helicopters’ blades rattle windows on the shingle-style mansions below, destroying property values as their growl forces poolside guests to shout across their cocktails.
air-vs-ground battle that grew increasingly pitched in recent years as shareable helicopters expanded, boosted by a pandemic rush to sequester in the Hamptons. Two decades ago the town took the unusual step of declining federal grant money for the airport in an effort to eventually regain local control; last year that money ran out, giving way for more local control and restrictions by the Town of East Hampton.
Even so, as the summer high season looms, the din is far from quieting down: Arguing that the airport supports the fragile summertime economy, aircraft enthusiasts and entrepreneurs, as well as residents afraid that fleets of aircraft will divert to tiny landing strips in their neighborhoods, such as in Montauk, have hit East Hampton Town with several lawsuits.
Video ads featuring beloved local shopkeepers supporting the airport for drawing needed business to the area pepper social media, while plans for grass-roots campaigns to drive up noise complaints (and thus the case for closure) hatch in inboxes. Yard signs beseeching passers-by to either save or shut down East Hampton Airport seem as ubiquitous in the Hamptons as hedgerow.
30,000 flights took off or landed at East Hampton airport, according to data provided by the town. Though helicopters have made up less than a third of the flights, which include turboprop planes and jets, they routinely stir more than 50 percent of complaints, according to a study commissioned by the town. A spokesman for Blade would not disclose how many flights it deploys to or from the airport. Via email, NetJets, a charter and shared jet service, declined to comment for this article, or provide the number of flights.
Dan Rattiner, the founder of the local newsmagazine, “Dan’s Papers,” saw a bigger picture emerging when the town first held an abortive competition to bring a slick, world-class facility to its roughly 600-acre plot in the late 1980s. The issue goes beyond the airport, he said, to frictions over the changed identity of the Hamptons over the past decades; it has gone from elite seaside hideaway to glitz-stuffed scene.