Everybody knows things cost more and go faster in New York because it's . . . well, New York. And those characteristics most assuredly apply to helicopters, which are very much a part of the Big Apple's beat.

While a light, single-engine helicopter in the upper Midwest might charter for about $900 an hour, its counterpart in New York goes for triple that. Landing fees for a twin at the West 30th Street Heliport can total $650. And yet that facility, along with Manhattan's two other public heliports, are so busy, loitering is not allowed.

Helicopter Association International President Matt Zuccaro piloted helicopters in the New York metro area for 30 years, and describes it as "one of the most demanding areas to operate in." The challenges: "The complexity of the environment, the competitive marketplace with a lot of operators available. It's one of the most highly regulated pieces of airspace and the most complex. But it's also a very rewarding place to operate." He says one study estimated the value of the helicopter industry to the city's economy at $180 million a year, noting that when the city was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, local helicopters provided emergency lift for the rescue operation.

Zuccaro opines that "Wall Street is one of the best heliports in the nation, East 34th is upgrading and West 30th is awaiting the results of a study to relocate." The HAI, the FAA and New York area operators sat down recently to make improvements in the airspace structure that affect the low-altitude routes and ATC around Manhattan. He finds it remarkable that the process took only 90 days, "made a safe piece of airspace even safer" and the results are already available to all operators online at the HAI and FAA Web sites while revised aeronautical charts are now out and in the hands of those who need them.

New York helicopter operators are competing with ground transportation, says Robert Grotell, a former head of the aviation division for New York City's Economic Development Commission and now an independent consultant who works closely with area helicopter operators and the government agencies that oversee them. With eight million people in the city's five boroughs (Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island) and a total of 15 million if you include the surrounding metropolitan area, surface traffic congestion during peak hours of travel is humbling. Behold the billionaire in his stretch limo in the gridlocked (a word coined in New York) entrance to the Midtown Tunnel. In a New York rush hour, money can't buy motion.

Unless it's smart money and goes by air, where the three-hour crawl along the Long Island Expressway out to the Hamptons becomes a 35-minute hop. "If you're a CEO in a Fortune 500 company, what are you going to do?" Grotell asks rhetorically. "It's all about the time value of money."

Jeff Smith, a Sikorsky S-76 pilot, is current chairman of the Eastern Region Helicopter Council (ERHC), an organization representing about 100 helicopters in operation today. He believes that the major factor in allowing the industry to thrive in New York is that Manhattan is truly an island, and the bridges and tunnels that connect it to the rest of the world are all choke points. "That's why you don't have the same situation around the other major cities in the nation," he opines. "Yes, it is about those who can afford it and have the money, but I used to run a charter company, and I had people who split the cost six ways. They were trying to get out to a rental house." They couldn't leave on Friday until the stock market closed, so if they got in the car at five o'clock, they wouldn't get out to eastern Long Island until dinner was cold. He says that without the helicopter, a lot of people just wouldn't go.

"About 15 years ago we had a recession, a softer recession [than the current one], and people got fed up with Long Island. Suddenly Connecticut became very important because people just weren't going to drive out on the Long Island Expressway," Smith says. "And that's why our industry has doubled in the last 10 years, going out east [to Long Island]. People can afford it, and it just makes sense."

One well-known group of commuters was an orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey's Monmouth County near Colt's Neck along the coast. In order to make it home by sundown for the start of Shabbat on Friday evenings, they flew on an S-76 from U.S. Helicopter, a helicopter airline connecting Manhattan with Newark and Kennedy airports. (U.S. Helicopter suspended scheduled operations in September of last year.) The Monmouth County operation used to run from early June to Labor Day. Liberty Helicopters continues to operate another rush-hour commuter service with a Eurocopter AStar that makes two trips a day into and out of the city from a heliport in Long Branch, N.J., to the 34th Street Heliport.

Of Manhattan's three commercial heliports, the city's Economic Development Commission is listed as owner of East 34th Street (6N5) and Downtown Manhattan/Wall Street (JRB), while New York State owns West 30th Street (JRA), and the landlord of record is the Hudson River Park Trust. The city leases East 34th Street to Atlantic Aviation and Downtown Manhattan to Saker Aviation Services. The state leases West 30th Street to Air Pegasus. As of Jan. 6, Atlantic was pumping Jet-A for $5.75 a gallon at East 34th Street, and the posted fuel price at West 30th Street had not been updated since last July. There are no fuel facilities at the Downtown Heliport.