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Charter helicopter service to Hamptons takes off

BY DAVE MARCUS | dave.marcus@newsday.com

8:11 PM EDT, May 14, 2008

Jill Zarin found a summer travel bargain she couldn't pass up: 10 helicopter trips to the Hamptons for $28,000.

"Honestly, to me time is money," said Zarin, 44, who shuttles between her city home and her beach house while overseeing a Manhattan fabric company and appearing on Bravo's "Real Housewives of New York."

"I've got so many things going on," she said. "I'm managing a business, doing a TV show, taking care of my family and running back and forth from the Hamptons to the city."

After taking an occasional copter to East Hampton last year, this year she bought the 10-trip pass, which amounts to $2,800 per one-way trip. That compares to $21 for a peak train ticket or $29 for the Jitney (known as an "air-conditioned luxury bus" in other parts of the country).

Of course, the train and Jitney don't take just six passengers and serve them Taittinger Champagne.

Blue Star Jets, a private aviation firm founded seven years ago by two Wall Street traders, is selling what it calls the Hamptons Helicard for those who don't want to bother with Long Island Expressway congestion.

Ahem. Perhaps somebody on Wall Street has mentioned something about New Yorkers being pinched these days.

"The people that were spending money are still spending money, especially the people that live in the Hamptons," said Jay Joel of Old Westbury, who owns a trucking company. He bought a Helicard to ease the commute from his New Jersey office to his Hamptons house.

Acknowledging that critics complain about the noise, air pollution and wasteful luxury of helicopters, Blue Star president of co-founder Todd Rome said, "There's always going to be someone who says it's frivolous. But is first class frivolous? This is just the new first class."

The flights are so popular that Blue Star is launching a charter jet and helicopter service for parents who want to make quick trips from the Hamptons to see their children at sleep-away camp. Fees run about $11,000 for a one-way trip on a 12-passenger jet.

As for Zarin, who grew up in Woodmere, she plans to return to the LIE slog at times. "Plenty of weekends I'm still going to drive because I've got to go to Costco and Target and load up on food, and obviously a copter doesn't do it."