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BlackBird the flight hailing s...Uber ushered in a new industry that has changed the way people find and use transportation. It enabled anyone with a smartphone to call a cab at their specific location and travel hassle free. Now, a company named BlackBird wants to do something similar, with planes. Rudd Davis, the CEO, and founder of BlackBird wants to make flight hailing commonplace and affordable. This is quite unlike Uber Elevate, which is testing its very own concept of electric planes with vertical take-off and landing capability. BlackBird on the hand is planning to create a platform that connects travelers with pilots and planes.
The company received a cool $10 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates and is planning to use it to scale up in terms of passengers, planes as well as pilots. BlackBird is confined to California for now and its platform currently has 700 pilots. It was the decision of CEO Rudd Davis to remain in California and improve upon the existing business model and the network. While luxury jets can be chartered by anyone who can pay large sums of money, BlackBird aims to put flight hailing within the reach of the common man, by using small and ordinary planes with turboprop engines. Davis hopes to replace driving over long distances with affordable flight.