Take a Look at Andre Balazs' New StndAIR Seaplane

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If you receive the Standard Culture newsletter (as we do�hello, hotel geeks!), then yesterday you will have learned about Michael Castillejos, the Texas native bellman who has a special gift for riding bellman carts down Washington Street.

But that's not the only buzz around the Standard these days�it turns out master hotelier Andre Balazs has been quietly planning the launch of StndAir, a seaplane service that shuttles passengers to and from standard (ha) getaway destinations like the Hamptons, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Hudson Valley.

Want to take a ride? The seaplane�which, by the way, seems to be making quite the comeback�can charter a flight to anywhere within a 300 mile radius of New York City, and is intended to be an extension of the Standard experience.

If that doesn't mean anything to you, here are some clues: Andre Balazs Sunset Beach Ros�, StndAir-branded water, and, um, Swedish Fish will all be offered during the flights. (If you ask us, other airlines would be wise to latch onto the whole free-candy-and-wine idea too�pure marketing genius.)

The bright red, Cessna 208, 8-passenger plane does look like a toy, it's true. The costs of climbing aboard, however, are slightly less playful. Book a regular seat to East Hampton for $495 (special room/flight packages will be available to guests, though no figures were released), or charter your own flight for a starting rate of $3,275.

Additionally, the hotel airline has developed a complex system known as the Flight Board Social Booking Platform, which rewards self-organized group charters with discounted rates (starting at $30 per seat.) Read below:

StndAIR passengers can also book flights to the Hamptons and beyond via a unique, social booking platform called the Flight Board. Travelers can 'compete' to charter flights at more affordable rates provided they recruit friends to fill the 8 seats on the plane, or take their chances with others seeking the same destination. The first person to book receives the lowest price and there's a sliding price scale that gradually increases as more participants sign up for that flight. The first to fill a flight gets the confirmed charter. This is a brand new booking experience for travel that makes it accessible and fun.

Guess a TV show wasn't enough for the Balazs. He had to go and invent some weird social-networking-seaplane-booking-site hybrid. Some people just don't stop!

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