Uber helicopter service set for Manhattan

Uber is to launch a helicopter service in New York City which is expected to offer flights from Lower Manhattan to Kennedy International Airport in eight minutes. A New York Times report says the average flight on the Uber Copter will cost $200-225 per person and include ground transportation on both ends of the trip. Eric Allison, head of Uber Elevate - the ride-hailing firm’s aerial division - says: “Our plan is to eventually roll out Uber Copter to more Uber customers and to other cities, but we want
June 12, 2019 Read time: 2 mins
8336 Uber is to launch a helicopter service in New York City which is expected to offer flights from Lower Manhattan to Kennedy International Airport in eight minutes.


A %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external New York Times false https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/travel/uber-helicopter-nyc-jfk.html false false%> report says the average flight on the Uber Copter will cost $200-225 per person and include ground transportation on both ends of the trip.

Eric Allison, head of Uber Elevate - the ride-hailing firm’s aerial division - says: “Our plan is to eventually roll out Uber Copter to more Uber customers and to other cities, but we want to do it right. The main goal of this initial venture is to understand the operations behind aerial vehicles.”

Starting on 9 July, Uber Copters will be available to Platinum and Diamond members of Uber Rewards - the company’s loyalty programme.

These members will be able to book Uber Copter on demand or up to five days in advance. Each chopper can carry up to five passengers and will operate from Monday to Friday during the afternoon rush hour. Users receive a boarding pass via email after reserving their seats.

Uber Copters in Manhattan will take off and land from a heliport near Staten Island Ferry. In Kennedy, the helicopters will depart and land at a helipad near Terminal 8.

HeliFlite, a helicopter transportation service, will operate the Uber Copters. Two pilots will be on board for each flight while riders will watch a safety video before the journey.

Customers will only be allowed to carry one personal bag and one carry-on weighing no more than 40 pounds.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • US parking tools refreshed
    March 9, 2018
    The US Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and National Parking Association have agreed to work together on updating their respective Parking Generation Manual and Shared Parking tools, last revised in 2010 and 2009. Fresh analyses in the former will differentiate levels of demand in rural, general urban/suburban, dense multi-use urban and core city centre locations, said ITE CEO Jeffrey F Paniati
    Read More
  • Insights into Mobility as a Service
    March 19, 2018
    Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is one of, if not the, biggest changes in the transport sector for many decades and ITS International’s stand is the place find out everything there is to know about MaaS - from concept to delivery. Having already run two successful MaaS Market conferences in London, the company is at Intertraffic highlighting its first US conference which is being run with the support of City of Atlanta and Georgia’s State Road & Tollway Authority. The US conference will take place in Atlanta
    Read More
  • Terrorists could use driverless cars to mount attacks, researchers warn
    February 22, 2018
    UK Researchers in Oxford and Cambridge have echoed concerns raised by ITS International two years ago about terrorists who could use autonomous cars to carry out attacks – in a report by The Telegraph. The 26 experts including those from Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, Cambridge’s Centre For the Study of Existential Risk and OpenAI warned that terrorists could exploit the risks in artificial intelligence (AI) to carry out driverless car crashes and cyber attacks. They added that AI is being rapid
    Read More
  • Connected cones make for safer sites
    May 31, 2013
    David Crawford welcomes new lives for old road safety products. Traffic cones and barrels have traditionally been on the bottom shelf of the road construction and maintenance industry, typically forming visible soft safety barriers for temporary works at a lower cost than concrete alternatives. On both sides of the Atlantic, however, they are fast gaining new roles as instrumented components in advanced construction safety arrays. The EC-sponsored €1 million (US$1.31 million) Safelane collaborative innovati
    Read More

Highlighted Content