The company reported today that the Australian city of Melbourne would be among the first place in the world where the Uber Air pilot program will be implemented after the US cities of Dallas and Los Angeles.
The general manager of Uber in Australia, New Zealand, and North Asia, Susan Anderson, made the announcement the day before at a meeting of the company in Washington. She stressed that more than 3.8 million Australians had used their shared transport service since its arrival in this market in 2012.
“Australian governments have adopted a farsighted approach to shared transport and its technology,” Anderson said. “This, together with the unique demographic and geospatial factors of Melbourne and the culture of innovation and technology, make Melbourne the third perfect city for the launch of Uber Air,” he said.
Uber indicated that traffic congestion in cities costs Australia 16,500 million Australian dollars (11,479 million US dollars or 11,482 million euros) each year and that it is projected that in 2030 the amount amounts to about 30,000 million Australian dollars.
For now, the company will start in January 2020 in New York a new service known as Uber Copter. The new service will offer trips to downtown Manhattan from JFK international airport and vice versa in just under 30 minutes.
Uber Copter will be connected to the entire Uber platform, so the user will be able to request the complete trip: from the Uber X that will pick user up at its departure point and take him to the take-off terminal, the type of trip he needs. The service will cost an average of 200 to 220 dollars per trip.
