In recent months, Mayor Bloomberg has been flying high in the polls, but ever since he started as mayor in 2002, he’s been flying high in the air as well.

Plenty of mayors have soared over the city’s 6,374.6 miles of streets in the New York Police Department’s helicopters, especially when traveling long distances – as from Staten Island to the Bronx.

But Mr. Bloomberg has taken chopper travel to new heights, figuratively at least, because he has his own helicopter or helicopters – city officials wouldn’t say – and once took the controls of an NYPD chopper while on city business. While Mr. Bloomberg is generally a passenger when riding in the city’s fleet, he sometimes pilots the helicopters and jets that he owns himself or through his company, Bloomberg L.P. When traveling out of town on city business, the mayor routinely welcomes city officials aboard his own jet. International travel is part of the job for New York City mayors, but Mr. Bloomberg is the first mayor who has his own planes to ride.

“He does it because he has a hectic schedule,” the mayor’s communications director, Ed Skyler, said. “Sometimes it’s the fastest way to get from one place to another.”

Air travel not only saves time, Mr. Skyler said, it also saves money, and it allows the mayor to remain in constant communication with his office and get work done while traveling – at least when he’s riding as a passenger.

The mayor pays for the air travel out of his own pocket and can stay in touch with what’s happening on the ground more efficiently than he could on a commercial flight. Last month, for example, the mayor found out about the London terror bombings while flying back from an Olympics trip to Singapore. Mr. Skyler said the mayor coordinated local response before his plane touched the ground.

Flying aboard private crafts also provides the backdrop for some special never-before-possible exchanges.

In an Olympics-related journey to Greece, for example, state and city elected officials were able to gather on plush seats that faced one another and have a productive conversation about New York.

In 2003, Mr. Bloomberg took a baseball player, Al Leiter; an actor, Billy Crystal; and the City Council speaker, Gifford Miller, to see the World Series in Florida. On the way back, there was a birthday cake for Mr. Leiter, whose birthday was that day.

Passengers who have been up in the air with the mayor have mixed – but generally positive – feelings about their rides.

When asked if he enjoyed flying in the helicopter, a member of the mayor’s staff, demanding anonymity, said: “I like landing.”

Mr. Skyler declined to say what kinds of planes and helicopters the mayor owns, either on his own or through his company, but passengers on both types of aircraft say they’re not exactly what you might think.

A council member who flew to the Catskills by helicopter with the mayor late last month for a campaign visit, Simcha Felder, said he took along a “barf bag.” The Brooklyn Democrat also traveled with the mayor on his airplane to Israel for the dedication of Yad Vashem.

Of riding in the helicopter, Mr. Felder said,”I felt like I was in a coffin.”

Of riding in the airplane, he said, “I think people have these illusions about there being a private pool and a sauna on that plane, with a private bar. Really it’s not. It’s like a larger coffin.”

He added: “It was so cramped. I don’t want to say anything inappropriate, but the two people sitting opposite the other three are touching. The legs are interlocking.”

Mr. Felder said he assumes the purpose of both aircraft is to save time, because he speculated that if the mayor wanted comfort he would take a car or fly on commercial flights.

“It works. The helicopter works,” he said. “But being in a nice car with good air conditioning is a lot more comfortable than being up there.”

A former mayor who has flown with Mr. Bloomberg, Ed Koch, said that when he was in office he flew around in a police helicopter but that, in general, he would rather avoid helicopters, because they’re not as safe as cars or planes.

And that’s not all. “As long as you’ve got another job like being mayor,” Mr. Koch said, “I want you in the seat that a passenger has and I want a commercial pilot flying it.”

Of Mr. Bloomberg, and his plane, he said: “He’s a good passenger and a very good host. It’s a very nice, posh small plane.”

Mr. Koch’s one complaint was the food. He said the sandwiches he ate on his two trips on the jet were okay but could have been better. Perhaps, he suggested, Mr. Bloomberg should serve takeout from the Carnegie Deli or Zabar’s.

Another two-time passenger, a member of the Assembly from Queens, Michael Gianaris, gave Air Bloomberg a more positive review. He said the jet was roomier than a commercial plane, though not as big as Air Force One, and had a “more friendly environment,” with chairs around a table, a group of chairs that can swivel and face each other, and a sofa.

“It was almost as if we weren’t flying,” he said. “It’s so comfortable that we might as well have been sitting in someone’s living room and not flying. If you didn’t look out the window you might not have noticed.”

In general, Mr. Bloomberg uses his own helicopter for campaigning and private trips, and uses the police helicopter to get around the city in the course of business. For example, late last month he piloted his personal helicopter upstate to woo the votes of Jewish voters summering in the Catskills. Early this month he rode in a police helicopter from borough to borough, reading proclamations in honor of National Night Out Against Crime.

When Mr. Bloomberg travels farther – to Washington to lobby for homeland security funds, for example – he sometimes pilots a Bloomberg corporate jet and reimburses the company out of his own pocket. Occasionally he takes the commercial shuttle.

Although the mayor sometimes takes the controls, Mr. Skyler said that on long trips overseas the mayor rests and works on city business, leaving the flying to full-time pilots.