Sounds of Silence: Quiet Helicopters on the Horizon for Downtown

Conceptual rendering of a future heliport at Pier 6, with battery-powered aircraft parked, and an added barge for maritime freight. Credit: NYCEDC and Downtown Skyport

There’s hope for quieter skies over Lower Manhattan.

The city has designated Downtown Skyport as the new operator of the Downtown Manhattan Heliport at Pier 6 near Wall Street. Their mission is to turn the facility, the city’s only base for tourist flights—now 30,000 trips annually—into what officials say will be “the first heliport in the world with the infrastructure to support electric flight.”

“You cannot hear them when they are up in the sky,” said Anton Fredriksson, director of aviation for the Economic Development Corp., the agency in charge of the city’s waterfront properties.

Electric-powered helicopters, said to be 20 times quieter than conventional choppers, are expected to be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration by sometime in 2026, Fredriksson said. Downtown Skyports, a joint partnership of Skyports Infrastructure and airport manager Groupe ADP, will start taking over the heliport at the beginning of the year, and readying it for eVTOL (electronic vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft. 

The new operators are tasked with upgrading the facility with the charging stations and other infrastructure needed to support the new aircraft. They will also oversee the pier’s planned role in the city-wide Blue Highways Initiative, which aims to reduce truck traffic by increasing freight transport by boat, with “last mile” delivery by bike. 

Speaking to Community Board 1’s Transportation Committee in December, Steven Spinello of Skyport Infrastructure tried to lower expectations about a sudden shift from noisy, gas-powered choppers to a fleet of silent ones. Once the aircraft are certified, he said, they will be deployed “strategically in different markets, whether it’s New York, whether it’s the Middle East and Dubai, so it’s not going to be like hundreds of aircraft operating on day one.”

In a statement, Stop the Chop NY/NJ, an organization that continues to advocate for a ban on all helicopter sightseeing tours, called the designation of Downtown Skyport “an important first step towards eliminating non essential fossil fuel-run helicopters from its heliports.”

Spinello said it would be impossible to outlaw all tourist flights over Manhattan. In fact, the city will raise the 30,000-flight cap if at least half of the fleet becomes electric powered. In addition, Fredriksson told the committee, the racket from tourist flights can’t be entirely silenced because some trips originate from outside New York City. 

“We don’t have control over the airspace there. And that’s why we need to work within this system,” he said. “We can’t just ban tours entirely. It won’t solve the problem.”