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Blade's Wiesenthal on Partnership with Uber in Boston (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: one percent. I'm Charlie Pellaton. That's a Bloomberg business slash
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  Speaker 1: bloom were taking stock the lux life, gold, jewlscing properties
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  Speaker 1: a valuable nature. Now that you live in that right
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  Speaker 1: front out, can I be your financial advisor? It's good
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  Speaker 1: to be keen. I thought of your eyes, and I
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  Speaker 1: m right out in buff Remember how much I wanted
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  Speaker 1: a big backyard with Grecian statue shaped edges and three
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  Speaker 1: swimming pool. Well, I got that Bloomberg taking stock the
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  Speaker 1: Lux Life on Bloomberg Radio. The Lux Life, Well, sometimes
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  Speaker 1: the Lux Life combines new technology with an old way
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  Speaker 1: of getting around. Rob Weisenthal is the founder and the
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  Speaker 1: chief executive of a Blade and he's here to tell
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  Speaker 1: us about the business model of Blade and how we
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  Speaker 1: can get up in the air for I guess less money.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you very much for being here on Thanks for
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  Speaker 1: having me. Tell us about Blade. What is it designed
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  Speaker 1: to do and how does technology change the business model? Well,
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  Speaker 1: it's designed to get you to get you from any
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  Speaker 1: point in the Northeast under four in of miles or
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  Speaker 1: a short distance aviation company. We want to make it
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  Speaker 1: an exciting, enjoyable, delightful experience, and we leverage technology UH
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  Speaker 1: to specifically crowdsourcing through our network of a hundred thousand
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  Speaker 1: users UH to make it affordable. But a big part
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  Speaker 1: of it is a network of incredible lounges with a
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  Speaker 1: terrific customer experience team we call them the c X
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  Speaker 1: team to kind of bring back that golden age of
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  Speaker 1: aviation when it was a personal touch, it was excitement
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  Speaker 1: and it was fun. Um I grew up in an
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  Speaker 1: arrow where I used to get dressed up to go on.
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  Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, does that mean people dressed
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  Speaker 1: nice again? You know, instead of putting on their sweats
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  Speaker 1: and you know exactly the average customer actually comes to
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  Speaker 1: one of our lounges forty minutes before their flight. They
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  Speaker 1: have cocktails, They you know, read vintage magazines. They meet
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  Speaker 1: people that they've met before, sometimes some new people, and uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know it's interesting because, especially with short distance aviation,
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  Speaker 1: whether it be turboprop planes or helicopters, where we got
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  Speaker 1: our start, you know, there really is that sense of
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  Speaker 1: adventure and excitement and we're trying to bring that back.
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  Speaker 1: But it starts with the experience on our app, which
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  Speaker 1: a hundred thousand users have downloaded. It moves to our lounges.
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  Speaker 1: We now have four lounges in New York City. Essentially,
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  Speaker 1: there's no way to fly into New York, whether by
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  Speaker 1: seaplane or helicopter, without going through or around a Blade lounge,
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  Speaker 1: and um, you know that's where the experience starts to
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  Speaker 1: continues the lounge and in the air, and the key
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  Speaker 1: is to try to make it seamless, easy and affordable.
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  Speaker 1: But by taking that hundred thousand users to answer your
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  Speaker 1: question of the technology, we are able to bring what
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  Speaker 1: used to be UM ships as we call it ships
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  Speaker 1: as as an air can be an airplane or a
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  Speaker 1: helicopter that have an average capacity realization at one point
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  Speaker 1: seven and bring it up. That brings the price down.
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  Speaker 1: So before Blade, say flying to East Hampton, for example,
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  Speaker 1: would be a three thousand, four thousand hour charter. That's
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  Speaker 1: a seat on that helicopters on five dollars. Let's just
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  Speaker 1: outline some of the geographies here Blade between Manhattan, Westchester,
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  Speaker 1: Miami and Palm Beach. You go take the helicopter to
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  Speaker 1: the Gulf Stream that's waiting for you. Is that kind
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  Speaker 1: We have a seasonal service called Blade one, and this
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  Speaker 1: was really the canvas that I had to kind of
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  Speaker 1: recreate what we just talked about, which is that Golden
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  Speaker 1: age of aviation. Your experience starts at a Blade lounge. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: you get in a helicopter, you fly to the side
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  Speaker 1: of a Gulf Stream jet which is specifically a UM
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  Speaker 1: the Blade jet for the season. We don't use random aircraft. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: their twelve captains chairs, no benches. You've tied English food.
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  Speaker 1: On the way down, you have Triprianic food. On the
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  Speaker 1: way back, you have iPad pros with first run movies
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  Speaker 1: and you actually have to flight attendants who uh I
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  Speaker 1: have You know, a bunch of us have trained personally.
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  Speaker 1: They're wearing UH to marrow melon outfits that she designed
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of a couple of years ago to kind
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  Speaker 1: of if you think about the old days when Amelia
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  Speaker 1: Pucci designed out it's for manoth Uh. You landed a
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  Speaker 1: Blade Lounge in Miami and on the return you could
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  Speaker 1: actually have dinner before you get on a plane. What's
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  Speaker 1: going on in Boston? In Boston today, we're very proud
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  Speaker 1: to have announced a partnership with uber other product for
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  Speaker 1: Memorial Day weekend. It's promotionally called Uber Air powered by Blade.
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  Speaker 1: It's our fourth partnership with uber uh and we'll be
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  Speaker 1: flying from a Blade Lounge at Signature Aviation at Logan
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  Speaker 1: for fort emn flight to Nantucket to a Blade Lounge
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  Speaker 1: and Nantucket it's the first time in many years that
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  Speaker 1: Nantucket has opened themselves up to a new air carrier.
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  Speaker 1: We're excited about that lounge. We're excited about being on
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  Speaker 1: on on island, so to speak, and Boston clearly is
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  Speaker 1: going to be the second hub for Blade. But I
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  Speaker 1: can't think of a better partner to start this with
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  Speaker 1: than than Uber, and they will be a partner with
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  Speaker 1: us for the first week and they're gonna have introductory
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  Speaker 1: pricing kind of kicked the summer off at three per
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  Speaker 1: seat and they've been absolutely terrific introducing us to Boss
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  Speaker 1: and so that's been great. Boston of course home to
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg a m rob cost. What's this all cost? Give
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  Speaker 1: us some numbers? Okay, So, as I said, you know,
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  Speaker 1: Uber Air powered by powered by Blades three urs from
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  Speaker 1: Boston to uh Nantucket. UH flights to uh say the
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  Speaker 1: Hampton's from Manhattan average probably about five or a seat.
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  Speaker 1: And then we have our fastest growing product, which is
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  Speaker 1: called Blade Bounce, which is a guaranteed helicopter within twenty minutes.
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  Speaker 1: You could stay sit here on your phone book within
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  Speaker 1: thirty seconds and within twenty minutes will be a helicopter
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  Speaker 1: waiting for you to take into any area airport for eight.
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  Speaker 1: That is not a seat, that is an entire helicopter. Alright,
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  Speaker 1: but Rob, but I guess I'm gonna have to get
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  Speaker 1: a seat on Blade to go to the lounge. I
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  Speaker 1: can't just show up for a drink for you. You
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  Speaker 1: can show up for a drink. Thank you so very much,
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  Speaker 1: and I have a lot of fun. Founder and CEO
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  Speaker 1: of Blade joining us to look at luxury on Bloomberg Radio.
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  Speaker 1: of your investments with David Kotok, the chairman and the
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  Speaker 1: with your money today? We'll find out