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Uber makes JFK airport helicopter taxis available to all users
- Terretta 7y agoAll these ride sharing / ride hailing things are more trouble than their price (see note) if you’re anywhere near a cab line or major avenue or cross street. All NYC cabs now let you use an app like Curb to just key in their number and have the ride paid like magic with no card payment interaction at all. Only use case left for ride hailing would be if you’re all dressed up and don’t want to walk from your front door to hail a cab, but the ride hailing drivers seem completely confused when expected to show up at an actual address instead of a pin on a corner, so the brands squander that advantage. Note: I’m not price conscious, it’s literally just more hassle to use something other than a cab if you’re in Manhattan. If Uber, Lyft, or Juno saved me time or hassle, I’d spend an arbitrary price. They don’t, they take longer, and are completely unpredictable as to whether they’ll ever stop circling the block and actually come get you. Can add 15+ minutes just messing around getting to you in midtown. Cabs are less volatility, now just as easy to pay for (there’s an app for that), and incidentally, also less cost.
- alexhutcheson 7y agoEh - I've had some really terrible NYC yellow cab drivers - drivers that drove really unsafely, wouldn't listen to my instructions about what route to take, made wrong turns, etc. I haven't had this problem with drivers on Uber/Lyft/Juno. I suspect that the average skill level of NYC cab drivers has gone down, since the more experiences drivers that have saved up enough for a car lease have switched to the ride-hailing services, leaving yellow cabs to be driven mostly by relatively recent arrivals to the city. I'll hail one if I'm in a hurry and I'm already on an avenue, but otherwise I'll go out of my way to avoid it. I agree that it's really frustrating waiting for an Uber in traffic-heavy places like Midtown during rush hour, though - the yellow cab probably wins for those cases if you can find one that's empty.
- eropple 7y ago> drivers that drove really unsafely, wouldn't listen to my instructions about what route to take, made wrong turns, etc. I haven't had this problem with drivers on Uber/Lyft/Juno. This sums up most of my urban Uber/Lyft experiences, be it Boston, Chicago, or NYC. Also my experiences when I'm driving and somebody's got an Uber sticker on the car. Cabs don't exactly vet driving, but Uber/Lyft have a lot of folks out there that probably shouldn't be driving. And it's pretty wishful thinking to think that Uber/Lyft don't have recent arrivals driving--Uber at least will give a warm body a lease and take the payments out of what those drivers make on the platform. (A big part of what passes for "their business" is car loans!)
- derrick_jensen 7y agoThat's why Uber and Lyft have rating systems, and bar people from driving if the rating as a driver is too low
- Scoundreller 7y ago> bar people from driving if the rating as a driver is too low With Uber's driver turnover being what it is, I wonder what has to happen for Uber to bar a driver. My bet is that they'll semi-shadow ban instead. Keep them in the system for capacity, but silently send less work their way. Especially to "complainy" customers.
- derrick_jensen 7y agoI'm not too sure about the specifics, but I have yet to be paired with a driver that has less than a 4.0 (although I don't watch to keenly). Most of them are 4.5+. I haven't rated anybody below a four
- insomniacity 7y agoIn the scenario proposed, they would be lying to you about the rating.
- zamadatix 7y agoCabs are getting better these days, especially with app improvements, but as your note mentions unless I know I'm always going to be in a place where there is a large taxi presence partnered with Curb then it's still not even a real option. E.g. Curb isn't where I am now but I can get a 3 AM Uber to my Airport, hop off at JFK, and Uber there too. The inverse is not true and will likely never be 100% true.
- Terretta 7y agoI attempted Uber, Juno, and Lyft, from JFK to midtown, on Saturday, around 9 PM. Didn’t mind any of the prices offered, ranging from $60 (Lyft) to $160 (Uber XL). Some had waits of 15 mins plus, some couldn’t get the pick-up pin to stick where I was, Uber went into beach-ball spinner mode, and wouldn’t match to a driver. Fed up with all the tech fail, I walked to cab line, no wait, $55 flat fee to midtown.
- lovehashbrowns 7y agoI'm not going to reward an industry that spent decades squandering innovation and didn't modernize until Uber came along. That's ridiculous. I'm happy with Lyft since I don't ever have to worry about "being near a cab line" or a major avenue. I just open the app and I can tell it where I want to go and where I'm at.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mffnbs 7y agoChicago has a very heavy cab presence and yet you'll get a lot of strange looks if you're standing on your residential street with your arm out expecting to get a cab. They'll drive by when dropping people off, but you'd be standing there awkwardly for a very long time. I can have an Uber at my door in < 3 minutes with two clicks on my phone.
- dvtrn 7y agoTo be fair I think you’d get strange looks on just about any residential street with your arm out looking for a cab unless you live in, and count the loop to be “residential”. Here in Chicago someone would just ask “why don’t you take dah CTA over derr?” and you know it’s true, heh.
- cozzyd 7y agoMy highrise building apparently has a cab light that can be requested to be turned on. I saw someone use it once, it didn't seem like they waited very long for a cab to pull up to the front door.
- mav3rick 7y agoNot everyone lives in luxury buildings.
- magashna 7y agoIs a switchable light really a luxury?
- reaperducer 7y agoDepends on the building. If you're on the lake end of Lakeshore East, those cab lights will whirl and blink for hours before a cab will accidentally wander past Aon Center and see it.
- reaperducer 7y agoyou'll get a lot of strange looks if you're standing on your residential street with your arm out expecting to get a cab. Depends a lot on your neighborhood, and the time of day. I lived in The Loop, and in the Gold Coast, and just walking out the front door of my building, I'd get anywhere from one to three cabs honking at me to see if I needed a ride. But then, once you got past Halsted, Division, or Harrison, it was taxi ghost town. In every town I've lived, the taxi industry killed itself by focusing on tourists and office workers, and not being available where the locals need them.
- lostgame 7y agoBecause NYC is everywhere? Certainly not like this in Toronto.
- Scoundreller 7y ago> Toronto Sometimes happens at Fri/Sat 2AM on King/Queen downtown. Uber/Lyft will surge and there'll be a million empty cabs driving by.
- chrisseaton 7y agoWhat does that tell you? People hate the service of cabs so much that they'll pay surge prices rather than use cabs.
- askafriend 7y agoI would rather pay more to take an Uber/Lyft than a Taxi almost always. With the ride share services, I have a full record of my trip and ability to rate the driver afterwards. I can even contact someone if something goes wrong or if I lose something in the car. I just have a much better experience start to finish and I'm willing to pay a premium for that.
- manigandham 7y agoThe price has never been the major factor, although ridesharing certainly was cheaper than cabs in the beginning and almost always is today.
- cortesoft 7y agoNot if you are in northern Manhattan, where cabs don't go.
- geofft 7y agoTrue in parts of NYC that cabs are street-hail-able. When I lived in downtown Brooklyn it was quite easy to street hail a cab and then use Curb to handle payment. But now that I live deeper in Brooklyn, there are basically no cabs to street hail on any street in walking distance, and using Curb to request a cab usually takes 10 minutes. Using Lyft takes more like 2-5 minutes. Meanwhile, my office is on Canal Street, which seems to be basically filled with already booked cabs - while it's in a busy part of lower Manhattan, I have had no luck street hailing when I'm sick and need to get home. If you're in Midtown I definitely believe that street hailing is easier/faster than app hailing.
- AJ007 7y agoI don’t think you should be down voted, but seriously? Try hailing a cab in rush hour or bad weather. Or a neighborhood outside of Manhattan with few cabs. Before Uber that’s what we did, and it sucked.
- reaperducer 7y agoI lived in Flatbush and Bay Ridge, and we just called car service. It's like Uber, but instead of using an app on your phone, you use a phone on your phone.
- scarejunba 7y agoInteresting. In SF, most of the time I just walk outside when my car has arrived and jump in. Then I get to my destination and jump out. The next time I take a ride I may do things like hit the 5 star button and the No Tip button but that's it. Most of the time my start and destination are already available from a quicklist because whatever time-and-location-search Lyft has is damned good. I don't want to key in numbers and shit. Not even a QR code? For this standard experience, I'm willing to sacrifice the tails: driver getting lost on way, driver being a dick. The rarity makes that worth it. Happens to me maybe once in 20 rides. Looks like you have a different calculus.
- differentView 7y agoExcept most people don't live in NYC. Here in LA, all the taxis I've ever been in were dirty, the drivers drove recklessly, and were much more expensive. Whenever I'm in NYC or other cities, it's also much more convenient to just use Uber or Lyft than to have to download and register an account for whatever app that city's taxis use.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rwmurrayVT 7y agoI took an Uber helicopter at EDC Las Vegas. It was partnered out with a local company that did the usual tours. It was pretty convenient and a cool add-on by Uber.
- apaprocki 7y agoThis is just rebranded service. I was curious on launch day and it quoted me $222. Going direct to Blade is $195.
- jumpingmice 7y agoAlso not exactly new. There has always been some company that will take you from NYC's heliports to its airports. Of course every one of these companies eventually went out of business, but some other group always stepped in to try to make it work.
- rolltiide 7y agoGoing out of business doesn't mean it didn't work. It might have made the owner lots of cash and they just stopped.
- dudus 7y agoSure, they all decided the business was a bit too successful to keep going. Sounds plausible
- rolltiide 7y agoHappens all the time. You put a half-assed attempt into finding a buyer and then go party in Ibiza in either scenario. Its the people not making money that imagine their one single idea in life is going to strike it big and they'll get married to it. The rest of us just make money, with the comfort that we now have enough money, or can make more with one of our monthly ideas, or can attract capital due to prior success or having made a profit for shareholders in the prior venture.
- sk5t 7y agoThere are, usually, ready buyers for a well-performing business--which is another word for a machine that turns money into more money. Furthermore, attaining some modest success does not tend to make business owners indifferent to the prospect of having a bit more success. Letting the business wither and die while one takes pills on Party Island is not the way it goes.
- vuln 7y agoCan you feel the “disruption”?
- sagivo 7y agowhy they focus on products that 0.0001% of the people can use?
- breakerbox 7y agoThe additional revenue from this stream is a drop in the bucket to Uber. I could be off here, but this seems like they will likely use these type of things just as advertisements and branding.
- ngoel36 7y agoHey there, we actually launched this as a precursor to our Uber Air service with all electric VTOLs -- Uber.com/air
- deanclatworthy 7y agoIt is. They did Uber helicopter at Cannes ad festival last year or the year before but it was a stunt. They also have Uber boats in Croatia but the locals told me it basically doesn’t exist as nobody local wants to do it.
- adrianmonk 7y agoWell, at least it's true to their name. You are literally above/over.
- olivermarks 7y agoNew York Airways used to have a helicopter service from JFK to Manhattan, it was cheap and frequent. Wikipedia: 'New York Airways flew Vertol 107 helicopters from the rooftop helipad to Pan Am's terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport from December 21, 1965, to February 18, 1968, when the service ceased due to inadequate passenger loads. For a short part of that time, they also offered service to Teterboro Airport. Service to JFK resumed in early 1977 using Sikorsky S-61s. On May 16, 1977, about one minute after an S-61L landed and its 20 passengers disembarked, the right front landing gear collapsed, causing the aircraft to topple onto its side with the rotors still turning. One of the five 20-foot (6.1 m) blades broke off and flew into a crowd of passengers waiting to board. Three men were killed instantly and another died later in a hospital. The blade sailed over the side of the building and killed a female pedestrian on the corner of Madison Avenue and 43rd Street. Two other people were seriously injured. Helicopter service was quickly suspended, and never resumed'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetLife_Building#Helicopter_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetLife_Building#Helicopter_se...
- irjustin 7y agoWow thanks for this. I admit, that's terrifying and somewhat mind blowing. The landing gear collapsed while it was 'parked' - ultimately killing a person a block away with the blades.
- wodenokoto 7y ago> it was cheap and frequent. Do you know what the price was?
- mattnguyen 7y ago$5 according to the YouTube documentary posted in your sibling comment.
- wodenokoto 7y agoWow, that is extremely cheap!
- sschueller 7y agoWhat's the CO2 footprint for using such a service vs taking a cab and sitting in traffic?
- sieabahlpark 7y agoDepends if you carpool I guess but I can't wait for air traffic to be miserable because of Uber
- johnisgood 7y agoNot sure why you are being down-voted but air traffic is definitely going to be an issue if we keep going down this route. Same goes to that other article regarding Russian (?) flying cars. Air pollution, noise pollution, crashes will cause them to fall from the sky onto... well, anywhere really, and so on.
- csharpminor 7y agoIt's substantial. Helicopters produce roughly 43 times more CO2 per hour than cars. From a 2016 NYT article: > The Airbus AS350 series of helicopters, one of the most popular among tour operators, produces approximately 950 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per hour; the average car produces 22 pounds per hour. > There are often eight helicopters motoring on the downtown heliport at any time. For those living and working nearby, that’s like 340 cars idling outside your window. Conservatively estimated, the 56,000 annual tourist flights have a carbon footprint greater than 6,000 metric tons. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/opinion/sunday/a-plague-of-helicopters-is-ruining-new-york.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/opinion/sunday/a-plague-o...
- chrischen 7y agoShouldn't you calculate it by passenger-time? The car seats 1-3 people, sits in traffic, etc. A passenger BUS probably does a lot more CO2 than a car too...
- csharpminor 7y ago
- lacampbell 7y agoHelicopter Taxis are much cheaper than I thought they would be. What distance do they travel for that amount of money? Not familiar with New York.
- sytelus 7y ago> Uber says the service is intended to reduce travel times, but when Reuters tried Copter on Wednesday, a trip from its Midtown office to the airport took 70 minutes, including a subway ride downtown and two Uber rides to and from the heliport. That’s about the same time it would have taken by regular taxi in moderate traffic. Helicopters are the beasts - mechanically, operationally and humanly. We need to invest in quad/hexcopter style autonomous point-to-point person-carrying flying vehicles. That could enable ability to fly out from nearly every building roof top with fraction of a cost. The 10-minute flight is also easily achievable with electrical UAVs.
- pininja 7y agoUber Copter is just the beginning.. I’m on the Uber Elevate team developing this. Our primary mission is Electric VTOLs.
- PeterStuer 7y agoDo you ever take pause at the probable environmental hellhole you are helping creating working on this?
- johnisgood 7y agoI, for one, cannot wait for mid-air collisions and parts falling down on residential areas, which is of course just the tip of the iceberg. Seriously, I doubt they care. They probably know about these negative impacts, the risks, etc. but money is money.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- vidarh 7y agoThere are at least half a dozen startups working on different variants. Most seem to be leaning towards electric VTOL planes rather than quad/hexcopter type things. E.g. https://lilium.com https://lilium.com
- PeterStuer 7y agoThe negative externalities for this type of transport must be massive. Even the noise pollution on its own should probably disqualify this beyond public emergency services.
- namdnay 7y agoAt a time where it's more urgent than ever to de-carbonise our economy, it's quite depressing to see this...
- cududa 7y agoThis is a spot that’s been a commercial helicopter landing/ launch pad for decades. It’s between the FDR Highway and the Hudson River. It’s not adding a lot of noise to anything.
- noelwelsh 7y agoThis just shows the poor state of NYC's public transport. With decent public transport there should be approximately zero demand for this service. It's about 1h20m from Penn Station to JFK taking first the LIRR to Jamaica and then changing to the AirTrain. Sometimes you'll get lucky and get an express train and you can do it in about 40 minutes. The distance is about 15 miles or 25 kms. It's normally longer (and a lot more expensive) to take a taxi. It would take about 1h30m to cycle to JFK from Penn Station, which is comparable to public transport (though obviously impractical for most people taking a flight). With well designed public transport the trip should be no more than 30 mins. That's an average of 30 mph, easily achievable by light rail. There should be a direct train connection to JFK instead of the slow AirTrain. Why isn't there? Basically because NYC can't get it's act together when it comes to building public transport. The Wikipedia page has more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirTrain_JFK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirTrain_JFK
- apaprocki 7y agoManhattan is huge, so context of where you are starting is very important. For me, I’m a 2 minute walk to the E train, where I can be already through security in the terminal in 45 minutes. What matters is not the speed but the consistency. I’ve never had it deviate from that number by any meaningful amount. We do have well designed public transportation, but you can’t make every point on the island take equal time. It’s similar with the Paddington Express in London. It’s one of the nicest airport train experiences, period. But then you’re in Paddington Station and you need to get to wherever you need to go in the city and that makes it take as long as the JFK trip for most people. If you actually look on a map there’s basically no way anyone could have built a LIRR style train to JFK in modern times without the entire length being a tunnel. The AirTrain is fast and very good at what it does — get you to the subway or LIRR.
- noelwelsh 7y agoThe relevant time is from whatever the transport hub is to the destination. The people who live a few stops from Heathrow on the Piccadilly line can get there pretty quickly but that is not a useful measure. I chose Penn Station because that's where the LIRR currently leaves from. The Wikipedia article talks about how a direct train line was planned but didn't eventuate. I can't agree that NYC has well designed public transportation. Metro North, the other train line I have experience with, is also dreadfully slow. The subway is old, dirty, and has poor signage.
- juskrey 7y agoHelicopter is a sucker's trap. Safety is nearly non-existing comparing to modern planes. Wait until the first accident and closure.
- bhouston 7y agoI worry about crazy people easily flying on a helicopter and crashing it. Crashing a taxi isn't such a big deal, but crashing an airplane or helicopter is.
- greggyb 7y agoThere are already helicopter tours and other companies offering this same air-taxi service. Is your worry new upon hearing this news, or is Uber somehow more dangerous?