What you need to know
- Uber Copter is now available to everyone.
- It's only available on iPhone, though.
- Only one route is currently available.
Uber might be the company everyone loves to hate, but there is no doubting its ambition. Hot on the heels of announcing a new Uber Work app, the folks at Road Show have shared their experiences with Uber Copter.
Now, Uber Copter isn't new. In fact, it launched earlier this summer but you had to be one of the chosen ones to get in on it. Now though, anyone can use it. You know, if a helicopter is the only way you want to travel. And of course, you book the whole thing via the Uber app.
Road Show says they booked a ride from the Bowery Ballroom in NYC to the TWA Hotel. In order to make that possible, Uber strings cars and helicopters together into one ride. A car picks you up and takes you to the helicopter and the helicopter does the rest. Apparently that's called Modality and it's the hot new thing. It'll also include things like scooters eventually, but for now it's cars and helicopters. As if that isn't already cool enough.
But today we're talking helicopters and, after a short jaunt down from the Bowery to the Manhattan heliport in the back of an UberX Toyota Camry, the Uber app chimed to prompt me of my next mode of transport. This time the app listed the means of conveyance as a Black Bell 430 and, instead of a license plate number, it listed the tail number of the helicopter -- a nice touch.
Once you arrive at the helipad you check-in and go through some safety information, and then you're off. Road Show says the whole thing cost just shy of $200, which isn't cheap. But if you need to avoid traffic and have the money to spare, this has to be the most baller way of getting around NYC we've ever come across.
Uber says this is only available to users of iPhones right now, but Android will be coming online at some point in the future. And it's only available from Manhattan to JFK, too.
We'd suggest checking out the full Road Show rundown of how this all works, along with some awesome photographs of NYC from the air. Love it or loathe it, Uber knows how to put on a show.
