New York Skyports Seaplane Base (NYS) Airport Charter Bus Rental Service

Charter Bus Rental Service to and from New York Skyports Seaplane Base (NYS) Airport

A seaplane banks low over the East River, settles onto the water beside the FDR Drive, and a few minutes later a group of eight is standing on a dock at the foot of East 23rd Street asking how everyone gets to the hotel. That is the exact moment our New York airport charter bus service earns its place. Union Limousine positions sedans, SUVs, Sprinter vans, and coaches on the FDR service road so arriving parties walk from the dock straight into a waiting vehicle, with luggage loaded and the route to Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, or the Hamptons already mapped out.

Group Transportation at Manhattan’s Only Seaplane Base

The Skyport is tiny by airport standards. There is no arrivals hall, no taxi rank, and no shuttle loop. Passengers step off a float onto a marina dock, walk past the lounge, and reach a service road that sits between the FDR Drive and a residential complex. For a couple traveling light, that is charming. For a corporate team returning from a Sag Harbor offsite with fourteen people and a pile of duffel bags, it turns into a scramble for rideshares that cannot pull over. Our charter bus service in New York solves that with one vehicle, one chauffeur, and one meeting point agreed in advance.

Who Reserves a Charter Bus at the East 23rd Street Skyport?

• Executive teams flying in from Southampton or East Hampton after a summer retreat, heading to a midtown office or a Brooklyn dinner reservation together
• Wedding parties returning from Shelter Island or Montauk who want the whole group delivered to a single hotel in Gramercy or Union Square
• Production and photo crews moving cases and equipment between a seaplane charter and a studio in Chelsea or Long Island City
• Private aviation clients connecting from a seaplane to a jet at Teterboro or Westchester with staff, guests, and baggage in tow
• Conference delegations landing at the Skyport as a scenic arrival, then continuing by coach to a venue near Kips Bay or the Javits Center

Vehicles Available for NYS Seaplane Base Charters

Seaplanes in New York carry up to ten passengers per flight, so many Skyport groups arrive on two or three aircraft spaced a few minutes apart. We size the vehicle to the full party, hold it at the service road until the last float touches the dock, and depart once everyone is aboard. Every option below is dispatched by the same Union Limousine services team, so a sedan for the CEO and a coach for the staff can be coordinated on one reservation.

Sedans, SUVs, and Stretch Limousines

• Sedans, up to 3 passengers: Cadillac CT6 sedans for an executive or a couple heading from the dock to a Midtown East hotel or a Park Avenue office
• SUVs, up to 6 passengers: Cadillac Escalade SUVs for families with beach bags, golf sets, or strollers coming back from the East End
• Stretch limousines, up to 20 passengers: a stretch limousine for 20 for bachelor parties, milestone birthdays, and post wedding celebrations that begin the second the seaplane door opens

Vans and Buses for Larger Parties

• Sprinter vans, up to 14 passengers: an executive Sprinter van seats an entire seaplane load plus luggage, ideal for boards, sales teams, and hospitality groups
• Party buses, up to 30 passengers: a 30 passenger party bus turns the ride from the Skyport to a rooftop in NoMad into the first stop of the night
• Mini charter buses, up to 35 passengers: a mini coach bus handles school groups, hotel transfers, and multi flight arrivals without the footprint of a full coach on the service road
• Full size charter buses, up to 56 passengers: a 56 passenger coach for conferences, incentive trips, and event staff moving between the seaplane base and venues across the five boroughs

New York Skyports Seaplane Base (NYS) Airport Information

Airport name: New York Skyports Seaplane Base (NYS) Airport. Airport code: NYS (FAA identifier 6N7). Address: 2430 FDR Dr Service Rd East, New York, NY 10010, United States. Phone: +1 201 751 8108. The base is managed through DockNYC, the city’s marine facilities operator, whose Skyport page lists hours, radio channels, and pilot requirements for the terminal.

History and Importance of the Skyport

Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia pushed for a seaplane terminal on the East River in the 1930s, and a former Greenpoint ferry pier at East 23rd Street was rebuilt with federal works funding to replace an older base at East 31st Street displaced by construction of the East River Drive. Flying began before the war, the facility was formally activated as a public seaplane base in 1946, and it was folded into the Skyport Marina complex completed in 1962. Today it remains the only seaplane base inside New York City limits, sitting between Waterside Plaza and Stuyvesant Cove Park, and it gives Manhattan a direct water link to the Hamptons, coastal Connecticut, and New England islands without a drive to JFK or LaGuardia.

Airlines and Seasonal Operators

Service at the Skyport is seasonal and runs on amphibious Cessna Grand Caravan seaplanes seating up to ten. For the 2026 season, which ran May 21 through September 8, the scheduled operator was BLADE, which checks fliers in at its Aqua Lounge on East 23rd Street and sells seats and shared charters to the East End. Tropic Ocean Airways offers seaplane charters on request from the same dock. Tailwind Air, once the headline carrier here, ended operations in January 2026, so older guides that reference it are out of date. Outside the summer window, movements are limited to private and chartered aircraft, and the base itself operates from 8 a.m. to dusk with no overnight tie downs.

Domestic Destinations

Scheduled seaplane flights from NYS land on the water at Westhampton, Southampton, Sag Harbor, Shelter Island, East Hampton, and Montauk, with block times as short as 35 minutes. Charters reach Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, the Connecticut shoreline, Atlantic City, and lakeside destinations upstate. Every one of these is a domestic hop, and every one produces the same result on return: a small group with bags standing on a dock in Stuyvesant Town looking for a ride.

Terminal Information

There is one small dockside terminal building inside the marina with a private check in lounge, restrooms, and a covered waiting area. Boarding is on foot down a gangway to the float dock, and the water runway is a north south stretch of the East River roughly 10,000 feet long. There is no control tower, no jet bridge, and no baggage carousel. Luggage is handed off the aircraft by ground crew and carried up the dock, which is exactly why groups value a chauffeur who is already standing at the top of the gangway to take it.

Passenger Traffic

The Skyport logs a few thousand air taxi movements a year, almost all of them between late May and early September. Traffic clusters on Thursday and Friday afternoons heading east and Sunday evenings heading back into the city, and holiday weekends push the dock to capacity. Because each aircraft carries so few people, a busy hour can mean six or seven separate arrivals, each with its own group looking for transportation at the same narrow curb.

Parking Overview

The seaplane base has no dedicated public parking lot. Marina slip holders use their own arrangements, and everyone else relies on commercial garages along East 23rd Street and in the surrounding blocks of Kips Bay and Gramercy. Metered street parking on the service road is scarce and short term, and vehicles over 20 feet will not fit in most neighborhood garages. For that reason, a group that drives itself to the Skyport for a Friday departure usually spends the first half hour of the weekend circling. A chauffeured drop off removes that step entirely.

Pick Up and Drop Off Guidance

Approaching from the FDR Drive

The marina entrance is on the FDR Drive service road at East 23rd Street. Northbound drivers leave the FDR at Exit 7 for 23rd Street and loop onto the service road; southbound drivers use the same exit and follow signs for the marina. The curb in front of the terminal is for active loading only, and larger vehicles wait on the service road just north of the entrance until the flight is on the dock. Our chauffeurs confirm the exact staging point with marina staff on the day and text the passenger a photo of the vehicle before the aircraft lands.

Ground Transportation Options

Passengers who have not arranged a ride can try to hail a yellow cab on the service road, request a rideshare pickup, walk to the M23 crosstown bus on East 23rd Street, or take the 6 train from the 23rd Street Baruch College station at Park Avenue South. The NYC Ferry Soundview route stops at Stuyvesant Cove at East 20th Street, a short walk south. None of these options accommodates a group of fourteen with luggage, and rideshare drivers regularly decline the stop because the service road is awkward to enter and exit. A prebooked coach is the only mode that moves a full seaplane load together.

Tips for Arriving Passengers

• Share your operator confirmation with us so we can watch the departure from the Hamptons and adjust the pickup window if the flight leaves late
• Expect a walk of roughly 200 feet from the float dock to the service road, so wear shoes that handle a gangway and a marina pier
• Seaplane weight limits are strict, and oversized items sometimes travel by ground; tell us in advance and we will carry them in the vehicle
• Summer thunderstorms and fog on the East River delay water landings; our dispatch holds the vehicle at no extra charge for weather delays we can verify
• Flights operate only in daylight, so an evening return often lands close to dusk with little margin, which makes a confirmed ride worth having

Why a Prebooked Chauffeur Beats Taxis and Rideshare at NYS?

Taxis do not queue at the Skyport, and app based drivers see a pin on a highway service road and frequently cancel. Groups end up splitting into three or four cars, arriving at different times, and paying surge pricing on a Sunday night. A reserved vehicle with a named chauffeur removes all of that: one meeting point, one departure, one invoice, and a driver who already knows the marina layout. It also means the group can head straight to a Manhattan chauffeur service style itinerary, with stops at a restaurant, a hotel, and a late flight from LaGuardia all handled in sequence.

Neighborhoods, Venues, and Airports We Connect to the Skyport

The seaplane base sits on the eastern edge of a dense stretch of Manhattan. Baruch College of the City University of New York is four blocks west at Lexington Avenue and 24th Street, and the campus map from Baruch College points visiting groups to the same 23rd Street exit our chauffeurs use. NYU Langone and Bellevue occupy the blocks along First Avenue to the north, and the Flatiron Building and Madison Square Park are a straight shot west along 23rd Street, where the Flatiron NoMad Partnership maintains the public plazas that host outdoor events and product launches through the year.

Kips Bay, Gramercy, Murray Hill, and NoMad

Most Skyport passengers are heading within a mile of the dock. We run frequent transfers to hotels and residences in Murray Hill, boutique properties in NoMad, event spaces around Union Square, and offices in the Flatiron District. For groups continuing east, our East Hampton car service handles the return leg by road when the weather grounds the seaplanes.

Group Venues Within a Short Drive

A coach leaving the FDR service road reaches the Javits Center on the far west side in about 20 minutes off peak, Madison Square Garden in 15, and the Manhattan Cruise Terminal piers on the Hudson in roughly 25. Brooklyn Bridge Park and the DUMBO waterfront are a quick run down the FDR and over the Brooklyn Bridge, which makes a seaplane arrival followed by a Brooklyn event a popular incentive trip format.

Airports and Heliports We Pair With Seaplane Flights

Passengers often combine a seaplane leg with a commercial or private flight the same day. We move groups from the Skyport to our JFK Airport charter bus pickups in about 45 minutes, to LaGuardia charter bus departures in 30, and to the Westchester County Airport charter bus program for private jet connections. The East 34th Street Heliport is eleven blocks north on the same river, and we also serve the Downtown Manhattan Heliport and the West 30th Street Heliport for clients switching between rotor and float.

Other Ways to Ride From the Seaplane Dock

Smaller parties who do not need a bus can book our NYS Airport car service, reserve an NYS Airport limo service for a celebration, or choose the NYS Airport Sprinter van rental when a single seaplane load wants to travel as one. Our New York airport chauffeur service covers every commercial and general aviation field in the region, so a seaplane arrival can be the first leg of a longer itinerary.

Reserve Your NYS Seaplane Base Charter Bus with Union Limousine

Send us the seaplane operator, the flight time, the number of passengers, and the drop off address, and Union Limousine will return a fixed quote with the vehicle, the chauffeur meeting point, and a direct line to dispatch. Summer weekends at the Skyport book out early, and coach positions on the service road are limited, so reserve as soon as your flight is confirmed. Our team is available around the clock to adjust pickup times when the weather over Long Island shifts, and every charter bus we send to East 23rd Street is fully insured, professionally driven, and prepared for the walk from the dock to the door.