The very same weekend André Balazs launches StndAIR service in The Hamptons with his eight-passenger Cessna 208 Caravan Amphibian aircraft lighting down on Peconic Bay, replete with complimentary glasses of rose and nibbles of Swedish Fish, former East Hampton High graduates Alex Esposito and James Mirras (both 24) put their entrepreneurial heads together to launch Hamptons Free Ride, featuring a six-seater electric shuttle that will run free trips to and from village beaches.
It's the kind of over-the-top gotta-have-it immediacy The Hamptons wittingly attracts that will keep StndAIR booked at $495 a ride from Manhattan on Friday evenings, and god bless 'em that's got the dough to soar above the L.I.E., the great equalizer of the road-bound where Maserati and Honda duke it out for the HOV lane. Our vote goes to the local grads who make good on an environment loving, free-ride sharing experiment that we hope makes it passed the onslaught of Independence Day. And what brilliant branding will they engender as the entire venture is to be funded by video advertising on the back of the free seats.
For those of us who remember the early days of The Hampton Jitney when something like three bucks bought you a bike tow from the beach to the village as the brown caravans made their way from Main Beach to Main Street, you have to wonder just how far Hamptons Free Ride will take us.
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