Uber Takes on Lyft at Sundance With Airbus Helicopter Service
Uber Technologies Inc. collaborated with Airbus Group SE to offer helicopter rides to attendees of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. There will be H125 and H130 helicopters from Airbus that will offer transportation by air on-demand.
Clapway reported that the Sundance Film Festival will be held in Park City, Utah on Jan. 21, 2016. Airbus CEO Tom Enders said that the partnership will hopefully introduce helicopter rides to a bigger market. The cost of the air rides has not been revealed yet, although previous similar arrangements cost from several hundreds to thousands of dollars.
For Sundance, Uber will provide a car to pick up clients and bring them to the helicopter. It will only take a few minutes for the car to arrive. The helicopter ride will save passengers time as they will no longer be traveling on the road and getting stuck in traffic.
After landing at the destination, another car will pick up the clients to the final point. If celebrities and other high-profile clients find the service satisfactory and recommendable, more projects between Uber and Airbus are expected in the near future.
“It’s a pilot project, we’ll see where it goes – but it’s pretty exciting,” Enders told the Wall Street Journal during the Digital Life Design conference.
Uber started in 2009 and features a highly popular smartphone app that lets people hail various types of vehicles when traveling in local areas. The company recently introduced other forms of transportation on-demand, such as boats in Turkey and rickshaws in India.
Uber initially tried the UberChopper service from Manhattan to the Hamptons in 2013. Uber also tried introducing helicopter rides during special events like the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival and Cannes Film Festival.
Airbus has not been doing very well in the helicopter department, so the team-up with Uber can potentially boost their income in the coming year. In the past, oil and gas companies were important customers to Airbus’ commercial helicopters. However, the drop in the prices of commodities compelled these companies to reduce costs and minimize their purchase and use of choppers.
Europe’s biggest aerospace firm plans to expand its connections to Silicon Valley in California. Enders also wants Airbus to stay innovative, considering how other companies are conducting aerospace projects. In 2015, Airbus started a $150 million fund in Silicon Valley for technology investments, based on the same Wall Street Journal report.
More updates and details on Uber and Airbus’ helicopter services are expected soon.
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