Uber Set to Take Sky with ‘Aerial Ridesharing’ Soon

Uber is all set to take the sky with its first helicopter rides ‘Aerial Ridesharing’. The first flights between New York’s JFK Airport and Manhattan would begin from July 9th. The air taxi is expected to charge around $200 to $225 as ticket, which also includes ground transportation in the city to the airport. The travel time between New York’s JFK Airport and Manhattan in the air is expected to be around eight minutes.

Thus the news of Uber’s air taxi also confirms its ambitions to go beyond city streets with its aerial ridesharing efforts, which will be operational and coordinated through Uber Elevate team.

Head of Uber Elevate, Eric Allison said, “Uber Copter offers the first real demonstration of the Elevate experience”. Allison also added the flight will also help Uber in gathering data for a wide rollout of Uber air transportation across the world, in the coming years. The initial air sharing service will be offered only to the members of Uber’s loyalty programs.

Helicopter ride services are not new to New York airports, but the speciality of Uber’s aerial services is its seamless solution which also includes all ground transportation to and fro from one’s home or place of residence and can be booked easily using one’s own smartphone app.

Previously, Uber has announced to launch its plans for shared air transport by 2023 between suburbs and cities, to start with between the cities in the United States followed by other countries of the world.

To fulfill the target it has been working with its partners to develop ‘flying cars’ or small electric aircraft with vertical takeoff and landing capability. Soon, it realised it can introduce air taxi much before its scheduled launch.

California based Uber is the largest ride-sharing firm in the world. Last month it has made a rocky stock market debut, which raised its valuation from $8 billion to around $82 billion. In the first days of trade, its shares slumped and only recently it has bounced back to its offering level. Uber also declared that it has lost $1 billion in the first three months of 2019 on the revenue of $3.1 billion.