Uber has launched flight booking an option within its app for UK customers.
According to the Financial Times, Uber has started rolling out a booking tool for UK domestic and international flights in conjunction with travel booking company Hopper. It’ll be expanding the tool to all UK users over the coming weeks.
With the pre-existing ability to hail cabs, order up groceries, and send for takeaways, Uber is said to be targeting so-called “super app” status. Part of that will come from expanding the app’s core remit from ride hailing to general travel booking platform.
In this respect, the UK often serves as something of a test ground for Uber. It’s one of the company’s largest markets outside of its native US, and British customers can already use the app to book domestic train, Eurostar and coach tickets.
Uber UK general manager Andrew Brem reveals that the aforementioned new train-booking service has proved extremely popular in the UK, with 40 percent month-on-month growth since the service’s rollout last year.
According to the report, Uber hopes to funnel more users towards its core ride-hailing business through this expansion. It’ll be able offer incentives such as discounted rides to the airport when making your flight booking. Considering that as much as 15 percent of the company’s bookings are airport trips, this would appear to make a lot of sense.
Uber hopes to expand this flight booking service to other countries in future, though there’s no solid timeframe on when or where that might happen.
