The Higher Standard, Now Transatlantic and Coast to Coast
June 16, 2026HeliFlite is expanding to London and San Francisco.
For more than twenty-five years, our clients in New York, South Florida, and the Bahamas have flown to a single standard: twin-engine aircraft, two certified pilots on every flight, private flights, your departure time. This June, that standard extends across the country to the San Francisco Bay Area and across the Atlantic to London.
San Francisco service begins June 2, 2026, with London following shortly.
For the executives, founders, and family offices who already build their lives across more than one city, this is the part that matters. The map gets larger. The standard does not change. A board meeting in Canary Wharf, a site visit on Sand Hill Road, a weekend in Napa, a cross-Channel engagement in Paris, all now coordinated by a company you already know, holding the same line on safety, privacy, and timing in every market it serves.
London: A Storied Partner, A Direct Line Across the Capital
Our London helicopter service begins June 5, 2026, through a partnership with Starspeed Ltd, one of the United Kingdom’s most established aviation companies. Founded in 1978 to serve Hambros Bank, Starspeed has since flown heads of state, members of royal families, and the leaders of global corporations, operating across more than sixty-five countries. Since 2017 it has been part of the Luxaviation Group, a global enterprise spanning five continents with more than 1,300 aviation professionals.
The structure is straightforward. HeliFlite owns the aircraft. Starspeed, as the UK CAA-certified operator, flies it. Clients get HeliFlite’s aircraft standard and Starspeed’s decades of on-the-ground experience, fully compliant with United Kingdom regulation.
The aircraft itself is a Sikorsky S-76 C++ with a six-seat VVIP cabin, permanently positioned at Fairoaks Airport. Fairoaks is the operational advantage few clients think to ask about: unrestricted operating hours, including early-morning arrivals, night flying, and off-airfield landings where permissions allow. For clients arriving transatlantic from the United States, that flexibility is the difference between landing on your schedule and landing on the airfield’s.
At the center of the London network is Battersea Heliport, the capital’s only licensed heliport and the most efficient aerial gateway into the City, Canary Wharf, and Mayfair. What takes hours by road takes minutes by air:
- • Biggin Hill Airport to Battersea Heliport in 10 minutes
- • Fairoaks to Heathrow in 10 minutes
- • Fairoaks to Gatwick in 15 minutes
- • London Luton Airport to Battersea Heliport in 15 minutes
- • Farnborough Airport to Battersea Heliport in 15 minutes
- • Fairoaks Airport to Battersea Heliport in 15 minutes
- • London Stansted Airport to Battersea Heliport in 20 minutes
- • Fairoaks Airport to Manchester in 1 hour
- • Fairoaks Airport to Liverpool in 1 hour 10 minutes
- • Battersea Heliport to Paris Issy-les-Moulineaux in 1 hour 25 minutes
That last line is the one global schedules turn on. For clients dividing time between the United Kingdom and the continent, direct service between Battersea and Paris means city-center to city-center mobility in under ninety minutes, with no reliance on rail timetables or commercial aviation queues. The aircraft’s range also opens longer domestic missions: destinations within roughly two hundred miles of London, including direct service to the Isles of Scilly, with flight times of under two hours to Tresco.
The network also extends to London’s major commercial airports. Clients arriving at Heathrow or Gatwick on transatlantic or commercial flights can connect directly to a HeliFlite charter rather than face the M25 or the Tube. The same works in reverse: departures from anywhere in the London network to Heathrow or Gatwick, replacing the ground journey that typically consumes an hour or more of a travel day. You are not limited to private aviation airports. Wherever you land in London, the aircraft comes to you.
The same reach makes the S-76 well suited to the calendar that defines a London season: Royal Ascot, The Cheltenham Festival, The Goodwood Festival of Speed, Stratford-upon-Avon, Bath, Stonehenge, Brighton, Canterbury, Cambridge, Oxford. When demand peaks and roads close, the helicopter is not a luxury but the only way to keep an itinerary intact.
Every flight is dual-piloted. Every departure is on your schedule. For HeliCard members, London integrates directly into your existing account so you can fly for the same guaranteed price and availability.
HeliCard is HeliFlite’s prepaid flight-hour program. One payment funds your account at a fixed hourly rate, locked for the term of your agreement with no adjustment for peak seasons or market demand. Book via the HeliFlite app or through our 24/7 flight operations team. Unused hours roll over at renewal, and family members, business partners, or employees can fly on your account with your authorization.
San Francisco: The Bay Area, Without the Ground
HeliFlite’s other new market is Northern California: world-class destinations separated by challenging ground distances. The Bay Bridge, the 101, race-day Santa Clara, or Highway 1 on a weekend. HeliFlite resolves it.
From San Francisco, the region compresses to a series of short flights:
- • San Francisco to Napa Valley in 15 minutes
- • San Francisco to Sonoma County in 20 minutes
- • San Francisco to Levi’s Stadium in 15 minutes
- • San Francisco to Silicon Valley in 20 minutes
- • San Francisco to Pebble Beach in 60 minutes
- • San Francisco to Lake Tahoe in 80 minutes
The Bay Area asks more of an executive’s schedule than almost any city in the country, and the reasons to fly run from the practical to the memorable. Airport transfers to SFO, OAK, and SJC. Multi-stop investor and board travel across Silicon Valley campuses and Sand Hill Road. Wine country estate access in Napa and Sonoma. The Monterey Peninsula’s courses, Pebble Beach, Cypress Point, Spyglass Hill, reached in an hour by air rather than two and a half by road. Game days at Levi’s Stadium without the 101. Lake Tahoe in roughly sixty minutes instead of a three-to-four-hour drive.
For companies with standing travel requirements, our team coordinates directly with executive assistants and travel offices to establish booking protocols, preferred routing, and recurring schedules. For recurring flight needs, the Helicard program offers competitive rates and guaranteed availability. Operating with a service radius of more than two hundred miles, HeliFlite brings the same discipline our New York and Miami clients expect to Northern California.
One Standard, Now in More Places
What connects a flight out of Fairoaks to a flight out of San Francisco is exactly what has connected every HeliFlite flight for twenty-five years.
Twin-engine, dual-piloted aircraft on every charter, every time. This is not a premium upgrade. It is the operational floor we refuse to fly below. Twin-engine redundancy and two certified crew members are standard because the alternative is not a standard we recognize.
Every charter is private. Your aircraft alone. No shared flights, no published schedules, no broker middlemen. Executive cabins are quiet enough to hold a conversation or take a call in flight, so you arrive ready rather than frayed.
London and San Francisco join New York, South Florida, and the Bahamas, as places where time is treated as what it is for our clients: the one asset that does not come back.
The Higher Standard. Extended.
To arrange a transfer in London or San Francisco, or to discuss a recurring travel program across any of our markets, contact us directly.
Carolyn Caretti Marino
cmarino@heliflite.com
973.273.7572
