Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- New York lawyer Barry Slotnick, best known for representing ``subway vigilante'' Bernhard Goetz in the 1980s, sat in the rotunda of East Hampton Airport on a recent Friday defending a favorite self-indulgence: $525 helicopter rides from Manhattan.

``Part of what keeps us in East Hampton is the ability to get here in 35 minutes,'' Slotnick, 60, said as he waited for his wife, Donna, to drive him to their house in the neighboring hamlet of Amagansett. ``There's nothing better than looking down on the bumper-to-bumper traffic.''

Even with turbulent financial markets, New York's best-paid lawyers, money managers, bankers and executives are flying high, at least when traveling to and from the cluster of Long Island towns known as the Hamptons.

As the likes of Slotnick, Blackstone Group co-founder Peter G. Peterson and designer Donna Karan opt for weekend helicopter commutes to and from East Hampton Airport -- about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Manhattan -- the earthbound complain that the din disrupts their lives.

``It felt like `Apocalypse Now,''' East Hampton resident Kathi Goldman said at a recent public hearing, describing choppers over her house in the northwest woods. Goldman, a retired science teacher at Grace H. Dodge High School in the Bronx, said choppers were so noisy on July 3 that she fled to her apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Noisy Weekend

Airport officials say this long Labor Day weekend may be one of the busiest -- and noisiest -- of the summer. Flyers avoid a drive that can take over three hours or a Long Island Rail Road commute that's, at best, 2 hours, 16 minutes.

Helicopter takeoffs and landings at East Hampton Airport were up 29 percent in the first seven months of 2007 from the year-ago period, to a total of 3,988 takeoffs and landings, or ``operations,'' according to airport manager Jim Brundige. Jet traffic is also up 29 percent, to 2,006 takeoffs and landings. Charters, fractional ownership and privately owned planes and choppers account for much of the increase.

This summer I noticed a bevy of corporate-sized jets flying over Buckskill Tennis Club, one of five tennis facilities within two miles of East Hampton Airport. The largest, the 24-acre East Hampton Indoor Tennis, is just a half-mile from the airport.

``The big change is the helicopters,'' said proprietor Scott Rubenstein, who snared his land for $23,000 an acre when he created the club in 1995, compared with about $150,000 an acre for comparable land miles away. ``We never realized how quiet the planes were until the helicopters came in.''

Popular Hotline

The airport complaint hotline (+1-631-537-LOUD) has recorded around 100 calls each summer Friday and Sunday. About 95 percent concern helicopters, said Matthew O'Brien, the airport's 22-year-old assistant manager.

In an interview, O'Brien shared complaints left on the hotline on Aug. 26:

At 5:46 p.m., a Noyac woman complained about low-flying choppers: ``Get them off my house!''

At 7:16 p.m., a Sag Harbor man called about 36 flights over his house that day, with the exact times.

At 7:35 p.m., a North Haven man called about a small jet: ``So low,'' he said.

At 8:20 p.m., a Noyac woman reported a low-flying chopper: ``Every little pane in big windows rattled; probably not even 1,000 feet,'' she said.

Demi's Chihuahua

Recent chopper passengers include Peterson and his wife, Joan Ganz Cooney; actress Demi Moore, accompanied by a chihuahua; Karan; adman Donny Deutsch; and Robert Shaye, founder of New Line Cinema Corp.

On any given Sunday, sitting on the 71-year-old airport's tarmac are $12 million Sikorsky S-76 helicopters and a Gulfstream G550 jet. The plane seats 16, flies as fast as 560 miles an hour and sells for about $47 million.

``It's unusual to see jets that big in an environment that small,'' said Bob MacLeod, a private pilot who flies to East Hampton from Gardiner, New York, where he runs Kiss My Face, a body-care-products company.

Commuters can choose between amphibious seaplanes and helicopters. The former tend to be less noisy. John Kelly, whose Shoreline Aviation charges $425 one-way between East Hampton Airport and Manhattan's East River at 23rd Street, said his three seaplanes fly as high as 5,500 feet. Brundige, the airport's manager since 2005, has encouraged helicopters to fly above 2,000 feet for noise abatement.

Priciest Service

Slotnick takes seaplanes but prefers the flexible schedules of helicopters. There are heliports on West 30th Street, East 34th Street and Wall Street -- near the office of his law firm, Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney. Southampton has a heliport but no airport. (Choppers in the Hamptons are prohibited from landing on or taking off from private property.)

On July 6, US Helicopter Corp. introduced the priciest regularly scheduled service: $799 one-way between Manhattan and East Hampton Airport, plus $20 per phone reservation. It features ample legroom and a backup pilot.

East Hampton Airport can't restrict aircraft traffic because it's considered ``uncontrolled'' and lacks an aircraft tower. Village officials are developing a new airport master plan that could include a tower. Meanwhile, an East Hampton noise-abatement committee -- led in part by former investment banker Peter Wadsworth -- has proposed that the village initiate a noise study that could give it power to ban helicopters.

Helicopter passengers and operators are unlikely to accede to local opponents without a big fight. On a recent Friday afternoon, four passengers sat in the cramped back seat of a Sound Aircraft Services helicopter, for $525 apiece. Rain made for poor visibility as the chopper left the East 34th Street heliport. Noise precluded casual conversation, but after 43 minutes flying over Long Island's trees and swimming pools we set down on the tarmac of tree-lined East Hampton Airport.

One could get used to this.

(Philip Boroff is a reporter for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on this story Philip Boroff in New York at pboroff@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 30, 2007 00:09 EDT