Tailwind launches first ever seaplane route to Washington DC

This is an interesting new route that has just been announced.

Seaplane operator Tailwind is expanding its East Coast amphibious shuttle service to Washington DC!

From September it is going to be possible to fly to both Boston and Washington DC from Manhattan’s Skyport Marina at East 23rd Street, on the East River.

I won’t delve too much in the operational details, since we covered them in this piece when Tailwind launched its NYC to Boston service last year.

The scheme here is similar. Tailwind is betting that the directness of this downtown to downtown connection will prove a strong enough proposition to fill at least a couple of projected 8-seater services (using amphibious Cessna Caravans). The route will have at first a x6 weekly frequency, but Tailwind aims to increase it two twice daily later on.

The terminus of this route in DC will be Washington, D.C.’s College Park Airport (CGS), which is about a 13 miles drive from the National Mall (if I am not mistaken the DC operation will be on dry land in any case).

Tailwind will be competing with the DCA to LGA services (similar flight time, but longer airport experience overall) and the Acela train service (3h 50min). It will also be possible to fly from Boston, with one intermediate stop in NYC, although not clear from the announcement whether this will involve a change of planes or, at the minimum, disembarking and reembarking again.

There’s been a bit of a resurgent interest in seaplanes lately, as I explained in this piece for The Points Guy.

If interested in learning more about the pros and cons of seaplane operations, I suggest you check also this podcast I did with Florida-based seaplane entrepreneur Rob Ceravolo, founder of Fly Tropic.