>>1204208Yeah, its probably a pipe dream, but it's the closest I can think of coming to a viable passenger seaplane business model in this day and age.
That said, if they let other operators run 135 ops off the East River, than running something borderline-STOL like the Be-200 off the Hudson should, hypothetically, be feasible, even if you were only flying short/regional haul flights to outlying airports.
FWIW, here's a schematic of the proposed passenger version. I also wonder if you couldn't gain back 50 or so knots of airspeed by going with a less-seaworthy design since this thing would be operating off of rivers and bays rather than in a maritime patrol/SAR role and as such would never be operating in anything resembling the rough conditions of the open ocean.
