08 Jun Uber Air – The Future Of Transportation?

Uber is building the future of aerial ridesharing. In 2023, Uber plans to give riders the option of an affordable shared flight. Uber is working closely with federal and local policymakers to develop an aerial offering that’s safe, quiet, and environmentally conscious, and that extends the reach of existing transportation options.

Uber has convened leaders across industry and government—vehicle designers, manufacturers, investors, operators, infrastructure providers, policymakers, and regulators—to build this future of urban aviation and begin testing in cities as early as 2020.

Over the next few years, Uber will continue to work closely with city and country stakeholders to create an aerial ridesharing network that’s intended to be safe, quiet, and environmentally conscious, and to support other transportation options.

Recently announced, Melbourne joins Dallas and Los Angeles in becoming the first cities to offer Uber Air flights, with the goal of beginning demonstrator flights in 2020 and commercial operations in 2023.

Uber is working toward giving riders the option to take shared VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft as one leg of their journey, effortlessly riding between conveniently located Skyports, from ground to air to ground.

A network of distributed Skyports is being planned to enable Uber Air operations. At scale, Skyports require all-new designs to handle an unprecedented number of takeoffs and landings. The top names in architecture, design, and engineering are devising solutions capable of handling up to 1,000 landings per hour, even within footprints as dense as an acre or 2.