European aerospace giant Airbus and Uber are partnering to offer the public what will indubitably be an expensive breed of services: on-demand helicopter rides. According to The Wall Street Journal, the project will be launched during the upcoming Sundance Film Festival, which will take place in Utah this week. No details have been revealed in regards to what financial agreements have been reached by the two companies—nor how much the chopper rides will cost—but Airbus chief Tom Enders describes the venture as “pretty exciting.”
A spokesperson from Airbus said that the company would be offering Airbus H125 and H130 helicopters for use in the project, while Uber will be dispatching cars to deliver passengers to and collect them from their aerial voyages. Neither company has spoken about what the potential cost of such a journey might be, but Uber has charged between a few hundred to a few thousand pounds for similar services. In 2013, for example, you could pay £2,000 for a helicopter ride from a helipad in New York City to the Hamptons on Long Island, where an SUV would be waiting to take you to your final destination.
This unusual collaboration is, at least in part, potentially the result of low oil prices. The Wall Street Journal writes that oil and gas companies have traditionally been a key market for Airbus, but sales have suffered in the last two years. As for Uber, this could potentially be another move to diversify its portfolio of available vehicles. In the past, the company has tried offering auto-rickshaw services in Delphi (the service was shut down late last year) and luxury boats in Turkey. As recently as a couple of weeks ago, Uber offered chopper rides during CES in Las Vegas.
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