Uber jumps on flights, bookings available in the UK and soon throughout Europe

No sooner said than done. Uber also throws itself on flights. This has been talked about since last year, when the US platform announced its intention to also introduce seat reservations on trains and buses, starting with the British market. If in the first case it had moved on a few months later, in the last one – a much more delicate context than the others – it took longer. The app led by Dara Khosrowshahi, at the helm since 2017, has in fact made it possible buy tickets for domestic and international flights departing from the UK. Not only that: the option should become available in the coming months in many other European markets. “The most ambitious step,” said the British country manager Andrew Brem to the Financial Times. For what? To expand the business model based on cars with drivers (and food) and aim to become one All-round “travel app”.useful to travelers on many different fronts.

The signals received in recent months from the British key market have been reassuring: railway reservations – on domestic trains, Eurostar and long-distance buses – are grew by 40% per month since launch, it seems, and have become very popular. As for flights, the mechanism is made possible thanks to the partnership with Hoppers, one of the most original travel apps in recent years: Uber will take a small commission from each ticket sold and in the future it could add it noticeably, charging it to the buyer. It goes without saying that everything holds true: the idea is obviously to offer convenient flight plus transfer packages, and thus sell users an integrated service to and from the airports. By rotating the package around the fly.

Apparently the British one is just a starter, albeit of great importance given that it is the largest market after the US. According to Brem, in fact, the plans – although not yet defined – are to offer flight bookings in many other European countries in the near future. In several countries, the car with driver call service is in fact greatly reduced or in fact out of the market due to costs (related to the few participating drivers and, in countries such as Italy, to the strong opposition of taxi drivers): the “jump” towards other forms of mobility, starting however from an unrivaled popularity and mobile user experience, would allow us to reopen the game even on the most critical fronts. On the other hand, Khosrowshahi himself has had the idea in mind for a long time: he has been talking about it since at least 2018, the year following the changeover with Travis Kalanick, the founder accused right between 2017 and 2018 of various, serious crimes including fraud and sexual harassment of a former employee.

The pandemic has obviously blocked that strategy, pushing – indeed, forcing – Uber to focus on home delivery of food with its sister platform Uber Eats. But now the times seem to be ripe again to ride the levied by global tourism: war in Ukraine and inflation will prevent a real return to 2019 levels, but 2023 – according to industry experts – will really be the year of definitive recovery. According to ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, for example, demand for flights will return to what it was four years ago and by the end of the year there will be growth of around 3% compared to 2019 data.

In short, it should be the right time after the somewhat unrealistic experiments, to be honest, of 2019 for helicopter transfers in some large centers, for example from Manhattan to JFK airport (Uber Copter). The insistence on the sector, as we said, is linked to numbers: around 15% of Uber’s global turnover is in fact linked to journeys departing from or arriving at airports and in the UK, 40% of journeys start or end at major transport hubs, such as Paddington or St. Pancras train stations.

The agreement

From today, It-Taxi’s cars will be integrated into Uber. We start from Rome

by Archangel Rociola

27 July 2022