Learn howHeliNY knows the sky’s never the limitgrowing business with TripWorks

Introduction

For more than 30 years, HeliNY has given visitors and locals alike a chance to see New York City from an entirely new perspective. Operating from the Downtown Manhattan Heliport and Linden Municipal Airport in New Jersey, the company flies more than 200 tours each week and welcomes more than 60,000 passengers annually.

With one of the region's largest Bell helicopter fleets and a pilot team boasting more than 80,000 combined flight hours, HeliNY has built a reputation for delivering safe, memorable aerial experiences above one of the world's most iconic skylines.

But sightseeing is only part of the story. HeliNY also operates private charters, destination flights, proposal experiences, medical logistics and organ transport, and specialized aviation services. Whether helping travelers skip city traffic or creating once-in-a-lifetime moments above Manhattan’s iconic skyline, the company is focused on delivering exceptional service from booking to boarding.

Safety is one of HeliNY's biggest differentiators. The company has earned both TOPS (Tour Operators Program of Safety) and Wingman certifications—two of the industry's leading safety credentials that require significant investment and exceed standard regulatory requirements. This distinction reflects HeliNY's commitment to delivering the highest standards of safety and operational excellence.

As HeliNY entered its next phase of growth, leadership recognized that delivering a premium customer experience required modernizing the technology powering the business behind the scenes.

HeliNY results at a glance

• 210,000+ bookings processed since January 2025
• $232,000+ recovered through abandoned cart campaigns
• ~$61,000 generated by TripWorks' AI phone agent
• 133,000+ digital waivers completed
• 10+ OTA integrations managed through a single platform
• $19.7M+ in combined reseller and direct booking revenue

A Wall Street mindset lands on the flight deck

When Paul Blodgett took the helm as HeliNY’s CEO, he brought a perspective few aviation operators possess.

Previously, Blodgett spent over two decades at Deutsche Bank, ultimately serving as a managing director responsible for large, global teams spanning operations, information security, compliance, marketing, business development, and strategic transformation.

Blodgett was initially brought in to help evaluate strategic options for HeliNY — to position, package, and properly sell the company to the right level of investors. Instead, he saw an opportunity to help transform the business from the inside.

One area instantly stood out: the tech stack.

Ready for takeoff: Finding the right platform for growth

As HeliNY entered the process of evaluation reservation and operations platforms, the team was focused on finding a solution that could support current operations and fuel future expansion.

They also wanted to be a more quantitative, data-driven company. “When we looked at the business, one of the biggest opportunities was around analytics, systems, efficiency, and technology,” Blodgett clarifies. “And that major technology gap is ultimately what led us to TripWorks.”

After evaluating several platforms, TripWorks quickly rose to the top of the list. Beyond modern reservation capabilities, the platform offered the operational visibility, reporting, and scalability HeliNY needed to support its next phase of growth.

"TripWorks was recommended by a few people,” Blodgett adds. “It’s important for any strategic system implementation to do your research, and be able to trust people who have been in the industry.”

TripWorks worked hand in hand with HeliNY throughout implementation — migrating historical data, ensuring business continuity during the transition, and providing the hands-on support needed for a smooth takeoff.

“One of the things I really liked about TripWorks was that they pulled in our historical information. It wasn't just a cutover where suddenly we only had data from the day we went live, he says. “The team worked through a lot of challenges with our old system to make the data usable enough for us to start running year-to-date reports right away. Today, I can compare year-over-year performance and run the larger queries I need to manage the business.”

“When we looked at the business, one of the biggest opportunities was around analytics, systems, efficiency, and technology. And that major technology gap is ultimately what led us to TripWorks. We knew our business would continue to grow, and we needed a platform that was scalable and could handle that growth projection.”

— Paul Blodgett, CEO, HeliNY

Behind every unforgettable flight is an exceptional operation

The customer experience begins long before passengers step on board. Every reservation, waiver, reminder email, upgrade, schedule change, check-in process, and any other interaction is part of the journey that shapes the guest experience. And the smoother those processes operate behind the scenes, the smoother the experience feels to customers.

Since stepping aboard the TripWorks platform, HeliNY has streamlined critical operational workflows across the business.

For example, the reservations and operations teams rely on TripWorks' Manifest tools daily to manage capacity, create blackout dates, coordinate charter flights, and oversee schedules across both locations. At check-in, staff can quickly move guests between tours, accommodate last-minute changes, and process upgrades without creating friction at the counter. Digital waivers and automated customer communications help reduce administrative work while making the check-in process faster and more efficient for guests.

Every day starts with data

For Blodgett, one of the biggest advantages of TripWorks has been visibility into the business. Through TripWorks' reporting tools and automated executive summaries, HeliNY leadership can track bookings, flight utilization, reseller performance, and revenue trends in real time.

"One of the many metrics that I run every single morning is flights by date,” says Blodgett. “I can judge how busy we are for the month, and make projections on tour flight volume so we can maximize our allocations. It's been very helpful. And the reporting has been great.”

As HeliNY's volume grew, TripWorks also worked with the company to improve report performance for larger date ranges and custom reseller analyses. That visibility has become increasingly important in a market that can shift rapidly due to weather, international travel trends, seasonal demand, and other intermittent conditions.

Recovering revenue and unlocking new growth opportunities

Beyond operational improvements, TripWorks has helped HeliNY capture demand that might otherwise be lost.

Using TripWorks' abandoned cart recovery tools, HeliNY has recovered $232,000+ in revenue from customers who started — but didn't complete — a booking.

The company also leverages dynamic promotions, integrated reseller channels, buy-now-pay-later options through Klarna, and upsell opportunities throughout the booking journey.

Today, HeliNY's distribution network includes more than 10 online travel agency partners, hotel concierge relationships, walk-in reseller channels, and direct online bookings powered by TripWorks.

"What people don't understand is that this isn't an add-on product. This is how you run your day-to-day operations. And converting to TripWorks has enabled us to dramatically grow our business this year.” — Paul Blodgett, CEO, HeliNY

Eyes on the horizon

While HeliNY already operates at significant scale, Blodgett sees technology as a necessary driver of future growth. The company is actively exploring new ways to improve guest communication, increase booking conversions, and expand customer support through emerging technologies like AI-powered chat and voice agents.

At the same time, Blodgett believes technology should enhance — not replace — the human element that defines hospitality.

“New York City is the capital of travel in the United States,” he says. “Everyone comes here.” For HeliNY, that means continually raising the bar: investing in the people, processes, and technology that make every guest journey as memorable on the ground as it is in the air. And, as HeliNY continues to grow, innovate, and elevate the guest experience, one thing has become abundantly clear: With the right technology in place, the sky’s never the limit.