📷 Cover photo by Seif, shared with their review
Some flights are remembered for the view. Others are remembered for the person in the left seat. For Seif, who flew with us in August 2022 alongside his friend Sebastian, it was both — an hour above New York City that began with a welcome at the airport and ended with restaurant recommendations on the ramp.
Their day started at Linden Airport in New Jersey, a small, unhurried field just minutes from Manhattan. There is no terminal shuffle here, no security line, no gate number to squint at. You park, you walk out to the airplane, and you meet your pilot. That first moment matters more than most people expect, and it set the tone for everything that followed.
"As if we had known each other for a long time"
Seif's account of the flight speaks for itself:
Renato welcomed us at the airport, and we immediately felt that we would have a good time with him. He was so friendly and nice, as if we had known each other for a long time. Like a flight attendant, he explains the security rules.
Then we take off and fly to the skies for an hour around New York, a moment that cannot be described, and Renato was there to make it even better. Renato knows the city like one, so he showed us everything you can see from atop the city and was able to see the Lady from every angle.
Renato was still available after that to give us information about things to do and places to visit in the city. This Pilot is more than a Pilot, he is one of the best guides you can find in this city!
Our thanks go out to you from Seif and Sebastian, and we wish you the best in your future endeavors!!
That line — "this Pilot is more than a Pilot" — is the part we keep coming back to. Flying an airplane safely over one of the busiest airspaces in the world is the job. Making two guests feel like old friends within five minutes of meeting them is something else entirely.
What an hour over New York actually looks like
Our tours are flown in a Piper Cherokee PA-28, a fixed-wing airplane with high, wide windows and a steady, level ride. That stability is what makes the difference for photographs. You are not fighting vibration or a narrow porthole; you are looking out at the city the way it was meant to be seen.
From Linden, the climb-out brings the harbor into view quickly. The Statue of Liberty comes first — the "Lady" Seif mentions — and because a fixed-wing airplane can circle her, guests see her from every angle rather than a single passing glance. Beyond that, the whole of Lower Manhattan rises up: One World Trade Center, the financial district's tight cluster of towers, the bridges stitching Brooklyn to the island, and Midtown standing tall behind them with the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building marking the skyline.
An hour sounds short until you are in it. Then it becomes, as Seif put it, a moment that cannot be described.
The part that happens on the ground
What Seif noticed after landing is something we hear often. The conversation does not end when the propeller stops. Our pilots live here. They know which neighborhoods reward a slow walk, which views are worth the trip, and where to eat afterward. Guests arrive for a flight and leave with a plan for the rest of their visit.
If you are coming to New York — or you have lived here your whole life and never seen it from above — there is a seat waiting at Linden. Bring a friend, the way Seif and Sebastian did. It is a better story when someone else was there too.
Ready for your own view of the skyline? Book your private NYC air tour with Azzurra City Tours — wheels up from Linden Airport, minutes from Manhattan.
