The Rather Unsurprising Rise of Uber Airways
“Welcome to our San Francisco — Los Angeles service, feel free to take any beverages from the minibars located on the upper bin compartments. If you want to enjoy your own music or watch a movie, just log into your Spotify or Netflix account on our entertainment systems. Please enjoy the ride,” says Lucy, your friendly flight attendant, who’s paying her way through San Fransisco State University moonlighting as a crew member for the recently launched Uber Airways. It’s 2018.
You’re now accustomed to these standards. Since launch week, you’ve been flying Uber every week to meet your clients in LA. No need to book in advance. The days of dealing with United or American are over. No more rude attendants telling you to put your seat in the upright position or else you’ll get thrown off the plane. After a couple of months, you’re now used to travel without carry-on luggage because you now can trust your bag will be shiningly waiting for you as soon as you reach the exit door. “Goodbye Mrs. McCallister”, you hear as the fine woman sitting next to you waves her hand to the security guard and steps into a black car provided by Uber Airway’s sister company.
Everyone seems very happy. Fuck the other airlines, and fuck the government too. You can’t believe why it took so long for the market to beat the inefficiencies caused by the big air travel incumbents and sloppy regulators.
The word is out. Soon, you won’t even have to go through security. The company will use a fresh round of capital co-lead by Fidelity and Abraaj Group to build their own airports. The first facility is being constructed east of Oakland despite concerns by the local authorities regarding a massive route clash with nearby Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose airports.
According to the latest reports, the company plans to use biometric devices to identify flyers, effectively protecting their flights from terrorists with minimum disruption to law-abiding travelers.
It’s 2020. Life was great until it wasn’t.
“Demand for your Los Angeles — San Francisco route is surging. Please say ‘OK Uber’ if you accept the 3.5X fare” you carefully listen on your smart headset. You gasp deeply as you realize this one-way trip will cost over 500 dollars… again. In the beginning, surges were rather infrequent, and even if flights after some NBA playoff games had gone up 5X, you could regularly fly your usual SFO-LAX route for under $150.
You think about getting a flight on United, but it’s getting harder ever since they lost most of their crews to Uber Airways. You search for an empty seat with no luck. Instead you decide to spend the night in San Francisco. Good thing you have your Kindle with you, loaded with new books to read such as Peter Thiel’s classic “From Zero to One”… Ah, the irony!
As you lay comfortably on your bed, you think about cutting your travel to Los Angeles even further. Air travel shouldn’t be that expensive, especially considering the company doesn’t even employ unionized workers. Actually, they barely employ anyone. Business during the 20th century blamed unions for their shortcomings and hefty prices; they lobbied their way out of regulation always defending the benefits of the free market economy. However, two years have passed since Uber Airways started flying unmanned aircraft, becoming the beacon of the post-employment era.
In the beginning, the company justified surge prices as an incentive mechanism to increase the supply of drivers at peak demand. But lately, the company has remained mostly quiet, and the eventual press release just labels the practice as a “market standard.” They aren’t lying. Once Uber commoditized surge pricing in the mid-2010s, market leaders across several industries duly followed. Even the healthcare industry is now giving priority access to surgical procedures to patients paying up to 5X the base price.
“It’s insane,” you tell yourself. When did we let a company hire teenagers to build software that automatically flies aircraft, at three-times the price we paid them before? How did we let a company bait us into a monopoly with a bottle of water and a five-star review system? What were we thinking when we celebrated the death of every plausible competitor to a company that never cared about following the rules of the game?
It’s 2022. Air travel has never been safer.
It’s been five years since the last accident. AI has revolutionized transportation in the best possible way. Who said technology would destroy us!? These systems are way more reliable than any human pilot, even if they have decades of experience. Nothing compares to Uber Mind, the proprietary deep learning system that combined the intelligence and flight experience of every single pilot alive.
It’s 2024. Only the super-rich can afford air travel now.
With the disappearance of Lufthansa earlier this year, the last real competitor to Uber went away. Now it’s clear how well the company’s strategy played off. Last year, as the competitor airlines started offering premium spirits on coach class, Uber offered free intercontinental travel for three straight weeks. Consumers didn’t understand this money losing strategy, but it was clear that they were strong-arming everyone else out of business. We’re looking at the triumph of the free market economy, investors say. It’s not the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last time in our history that some get to live the most enjoyable life experience at the expense of others.
You arrive in London after a smooth 5-hour flight. Your friend welcomes you with a warm hug and reminds you how privileged you are to even fly. “Yeah, I know,” you say.
