As Manhattan motorists sit for hours on the Long Island Expressway making slow progress toward their Hamptons weekend getaways, a new $1,600-a-seat round-trip helicopter service is flying to East Hampton, N.Y., from Midtown Manhattan in 35 minutes flat.

While chartered seaplanes and choppers have offered speedy service to the Hamptons for more than a decade, U.S. Helicopter last week unveiled the first scheduled helicopter service to East Hampton Airport, allowing New Yorkers with big budgets to book flights on a whim hours before takeoff. The convenience comes at a price — it’s nearly twice as expensive as some charters.

“Time is money,” the executive director of the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce, Marina Van, said. “People want to get to New York and back as fast as possible.”

U.S. Helicopter has reconfigured its fleet of four 12-seat Sikorsky choppers into eight-passenger cabins that feature wide, plush leather seats in blue, white, and beige. The helicopters are flown by two pilots, which significantly adds to the cost — and safety — of the service, aviation experts said.

U.S. Helicopter’s current schedule includes departures from the 34th Street heliport at 2:30 p.m. Friday afternoons, and from the East Hampton Airport on Sunday evenings at 7:30 p.m.

Even in a market where price is rarely an object, $1,600 for a roundtrip ticket could be closing in on the limit of what people are willing to pay for convenience.

A seat on a Shoreline Aviation seaplane, a shared charter, costs $850 roundtrip, while the Long Island Rail Road charges $20 for a one-way ticket to East Hampton during peak hours. The Hampton Jitney charges $29 for a one-way ride. “There are gradations even among people who make too much money,” a money manager, Peter Frey, said. Mr. Frey, who has ridden the seaplane, said he would likely draw the line at a service that cost twice as much and didn’t shave extra time off the trip.

Last Friday, however, U.S. Helicopter’s debuted with a full flight. Seats are available for this weekend, and U.S. Helicopter plans to expand its service to accommodate demand, a spokeswoman for the company said.

Helicopter traffic in East Hampton has more than doubled over the past 10 years, the manager of East Hampton Airport, James Brundige, said. The small airport fielded a record 5,787 helicopter trips in 2006, and local residents have been vocal in their concerns that the choppers are providing an amenity to the well-heeled at their expense.

“As an airport manager, helicopters are a nemesis,” Mr. Brundige said in an interview. He said he fields a steady stream of noise complaints from local residents. A growing problem in the communities of North Sea, Bridgehampton, and Sagaponack, N.Y., are the weekend rumbling of helicopters flying lower than the recommended 2,000-foot altitude. “The impact to the residential areas below is significant,” a town councilwoman for Southampton, N.Y., Nancy Graboski, said in an interview. “When 30 or 40 come in on a Friday night, it’s interfering with people’s quality of life.”

Other helicopter companies are also offering spruced-up packages to attract more customers. One charter helicopter company, BlueStar, recently debuted a Hamptons HeliCard, where frequent fliers can purchase packages of trips for the summer. The 30-trip package weighs in at $82,000. BlueStar charters accommodate six passengers and cost between $6,000 to $14,000 a round-trip — with Taittinger Champagne served during the short flight.

Some committed motorists said that even when tempted by the luxury of helicopter transportation, they would never ditch their cars. “I’m a driver and I love it,” an author, restaurateur, and advertising executive, Jerry Della Femina, said. “I’m driving out to the most beautiful place in the world, so what’s the big deal if it takes two hours or three hours?”