Uber is said to be concretizing its transformation into a super travel application across the Channel. In a press release published on April 6, Jamie Heywood, managing director of Uber United Kingdom, proposes the imminent arrival of a reservation service encompassing bus, train and plane.
Uber, the privileged interlocutor for all your trips?
Uber wants to become a must for the organization of trips for its customers in the United Kingdom. The next evolution of the company promises a service of ” door to door “: an Uber driver picks up the user at home to take him to the airport where a flight booked via the application awaits him. On his arrival a driver takes him to his destination. An idea drawn from a simple observation, before the pandemic 15% of trips provided by Uber went to or left from an airport.
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Obviously, the company does not plan to uberize air or rail transport as it has done with urban journeys. Airlines, bus and railway operators, car rentals will be integrated into the application so that the user can directly take his reservation.
Jamie Heywood sees a continuity in the role that Uber has given itself, ” You’ve been able to book rides, bikes, boat services and scooters on the Uber app for a number of years, so adding trains and coaches is a natural progression. “. He has added ” Later this year we plan to incorporate flights, and in the future hotels “.
To do this, Uber is promising “world-leading” partnerships that will make the app ” a one-stop-shop for all your travel needs “. The name of Eurostar, between London and Paris, is already circulating among the potential future partners of the Californian company.
A long-term project
This strategy is not new. Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber since September 2017, planned in 2018 to make his company a ” Amazon transport “. A not-so-surprising proposition for the former CEO of the travel platform Expedia.
The ambition of the new boss of Uber however came up against an imponderable, the arrival of the Covid-19. The pandemic has destabilized the entire travel industry and understandably pushed back the CEO’s plans as he admits in the FinancialTimes“ It’s fair to say that Covid has made it a bit difficult for us to progress as quickly as we would like. “.
The choice of the United Kingdom to launch this super Uber app owes nothing to chance. First of all, the company obtained on March 26 a 30-month license to work in London. Good news in a long-running legal dispute over the status of company drivers.
This decision also demonstrates Uber’s impatience to carry out its plans. The United Kingdom is simply the company’s second largest global market after the United States. It is therefore a life-size test, the success of which could prefigure the new face of the application elsewhere in the world.