Uber Helicopter Rides To JFK Cost Less Than Its Car Rides At One Point

Ah, the wonders of city gridlock, and the gifts it showers upon us…

It turns out that Manhattan is so congested and impossible to drive through that, at one point in time, it actually cost less to take an Uber helicopter to JFK airport from downtown than it did to take a car, according to Bloomberg.

The helicopter ride, which takes about 8 minutes, cost $108.98 at one point, which is almost 33% less than the $163.11 charge a rider would have racked up taking an Uber Black and slightly higher than the $100.35 it cost to take an UberX on the same trip. 

The pricing of its helicopter rides varies with demand, location and time of day. Still, it was an odd arbitrage given Uber’s new commitment to slashing rider discounts in order to try and achieve profitability. 

The chopper rides usually cost between $200 and $225. The discount was called a temporary offer for “a small, random set of riders,” the company said. 

The company declined to talk about how many total chopper rides it has given since it introduced the service this past summer. The company is collecting data from its NYC service, which runs Monday through Friday during afternoon rush hour. 

Uber will use the data to try and determine whether or not to expand the service. 

The company’s Uber Elevate program – a larger aerial ridesharing initiative – is still set to test flights in Dallas, Los Angeles and Melbourne next year. The service is set to become available in 2023.

Uber’s expansion into aerial highlights the company’s ambitions of growing, while at the same time targeting becoming a profitable company. 

Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi said in November that the company would only focus on businesses and markets where it could establish or defend a top leadership position, putting more focus on the company’s quest to stop burning cash.