New Seaplane Service to Travel from Manhattan to Nantucket

NANTUCKET – An airline which operates seaplanes is offering a new travel option to Nantucket.

Beginning Memorial Day Weekend, Tailwind Air will fly between the East 23rd Street Skyport Terminal on the East River in Manhattan to Nantucket Memorial Airport for a round-trip cost of almost $1,600.

Tailwind’s Vice President of Sales Peter Manice says the service will cut down on the travel time getting in and out of New York.

“Our flight times are about an hour and 15 minutes and we have very short check in windows,” Manice said. “So you can actually get door-to-door from your office in about two hours.”

The service will be faster than flying out of any other airport in or surrounding New York.

Tailwind decided traveling to Nantucket during the summer was a great opportunity.

“There is a tremendous amount of demand to get to Nantucket from Manhattan and not a lot of great ways to do it,” Manice said.

Flights will leave New York at 5 p.m. on Fridays with return trips leaving Nantucket on Sunday afternoons and early Monday mornings.

The service will run from May 26 through Columbus Day.

Tailwind will also fly between Manhattan and Logan International Airport in Boston.

Flights between New York and Boston operate Monday through Thursdays and are conveniently timed in the morning and evening. The round-trip flights by seaplane can save travelers three to five hours of total trip time over other airlines and train services. Advance ticket purchases are $999 round-trip.

Both flights are new routes and not available from any other operator.

Manice said Tailwind will not be the most inexpensive option to get between the different locations.

“We’re looking for a consumer who values their time and might even be looking at private options, which are orders of magnitude more expensive, and really would like to avoid some of the hassle and trouble that you get with having to leave for JFK two or three hours before your flight,” Manice said.

Manice said that the airline may look at traveling to Provincetown and Martha’s Vineyard in the future.

“It looks to us from our research that there is a greater index of New Yorkers on Nantucket than the Vineyard but there certainly is a very robust market there,” Manice said.

The airline has been in operation for about five or six years and provides direct services from Manhattan to various locations. Tailwind operates a lot of charter flights as well as scheduled flights to the Hamptons. They have previously launched flights to Boston.

“We frequently charter airplanes to a variety of the islands, whether it be Fishers Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and even Newport, Rhode Island for the summer season,” Manice said.

Tickets are on sale now at flytailwind.com.

By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter

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