Apr 8, 2026
One could argue that time is money for us all. Every extra minute lost in traffic to and from the office each day chips away at our productivity.
Now, imagine your productivity was measured by the billion. Those lost minutes suddenly become worth a lot more — at least that's what one Miami company is counting on.
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Like a scene from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous — or the umpteen behind-the-scenes of the super rich reality shows that followed — clients of ILandMiami (1, 2) simply book a floating helipad to "dock" off their oceanfront property so they can go from private jet to private helicopter to private residence. The price? About $1,000 per minute, according to Business Insider (3).
"I realized how much money is here and how many properties are on the water, and how many people could potentially use the service due to the traffic and the way Miami was growing," Adam Terris, ILandMiami's CEO, told the news outlet.
How much the ride is worth
Whether it's beachfront or one of the islands just offshore, billionaires are buying up properties in and around Miami Beach.
According to a report by the New York Times (4), since last March, more than $500 million worth of real estate has been snapped up by just a handful of ultra-high earners, including Mark Zuckerberg, Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and Michael Ferro, Jr., chairman of Merrick Ventures.
In 2025, Zuckerberg, for one, is reported to have added $24.3 billion to his net worth (5), now estimated to top $226 billion. If you divide that growth by total minutes in a year, 525,600, each one was worth $46,232.88 in earning potential for the Meta founder and CEO last year.
So, spending between $4,000 to $4,500 for the time it would take to disembark a helicopter onto an ILandMiami helipad and then onto a boat that would ferry him to the $170 million home he recently purchased on Miami's Indian Creek Island would likely be worth it. A drop in the bucket, really, to beat the traffic home. (Zuckerberg’s home, still under construction, broke Miami-Dade County sales records, according to the Wall Street Journal (6).)
Terris would not divulge his client roster to Business Insider, citing nondisclosure agreements, but he did say they include folks who would typically be landing onto their own superyachts, but cannot because Miami's waters are not deep enough to accommodate those vessels. (Zuckerberg's $300 million Launchpad (7) megayacht must be parked elsewhere.)
Other entrepreneurs are taking to the skies to solve that problem, with the news outlet reporting that Miami has approved several companies to test flying taxis.
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The cost of commuting
It's understandable that commuters might look to the sky for relief.
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According to the 2025 Urban Mobility Report (8) from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), Americans spent more time in traffic in 2024 than they have since reporting began in 1982.
Among 494 urban areas tracked, commuters lost an average of 63 hours to traffic delays. That's equal to almost eight days of work per commuter. The cost of the nation's congestion problem, as report authors put it, was $269 billion in 2024.
Miami commuters spent considerably more time delayed by congestion than the national average, at 93 hours annually — just behind San Jose (94 hours) but ahead of Washington, D.C. (90 hours).
And to put a finer point on what that costs, the report includes how much extra fuel was consumed by commuters as a result of congestion in 2024: for Miamians, it was 31 gallons.
If that figure remained unchanged for 2026, however unlikely given commuting trends over the previous five years, with the current price of gas in Miami-Dade, $4.15 (9) according to AAA, commuters would spend an extra $128.65 at the pump simply to sit in traffic. That's not going to get most people out of their cars and into flying taxis, but it would cover the cost of a Miami Metrorail monthly pass (10), which could help ease congestion — on the roads, at least.
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.
Business Insider (1)(3); ILandMiami (2); New York Times (4); Forbes (5); Wall Street Journal (6); YachtWorld (7); Texas A&M Transportation Institute (8); AAA (9); Miami-Dade Transit (10)
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Tara Losinski is an associate editor for Moneywise.
