Las Vegas Could Have $30 Rideshare Helicopters by 2026

Posted on: March 12, 2025, 01:39h. 

Last updated on: March 12, 2025, 03:00h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.
  • If all goes according to plan, rideshare helicopters could be summoned for trips around Las Vegas by next year
  • The trips would take 3-5 minutes each and cost as little as $30 per person

You’re in Vegas and your best friend’s Elvis wedding starts in five minutes on the other side of a traffic-clogged Strip. What to do?

The UPWIN Air Taxi Ride Share hub will be at Allegiant Stadium, where founder Rob Lauer has already purchased enough land for four helipads and the Raiders-themed welcome station above. (Image: UPWIN)

Elon Musk’s Vegas Loop won’t help. That only operates between the Convention Center, Westgate, and Resorts World so far. And even when it bores enough tunnels to eventually support its promised 72 stations, travel will top out at only 40 mph, not the 155 mph Musk originally pitched in 2018.

Rob Lauer has a different plan…

We can move thousands of people around town day and night while flying over the traffic,” the real-estate developer told Casino.org.

Lauer’s proposed UPWIN Air Taxi Ride Share would use plain old helicopters, like the ones flying sightseeing excursions for decades, for commuting instead. And Lauer says he can offer seats for as little as $30 each.

Space Cowboy

This rendering shows a helipad on top of a building not far from the Las Vegas Strip. (Image: UPWIN)

Lauer, a pilot since age 17, is also the entrepreneur developing the Las Vegas Spaceport, an ambitious private initiative that would take rich civilians for recreational rides into space via rockets that take off and land like airplanes. Those flights would cost about $125K per seat and take off about 15 times a month.

The idea for rideshare helicopters came to Lauer while thinking about how to get tourists from the Strip to the Spaceport, which is 50 miles southwest of Las Vegas in the desert by Pahrump, as quickly as possible.

While Lauer’s spaceport is still far off — and some critics claim far-fetched — his rideshare helicopters could be in the air by the end of next year. Lauer says he has purchased the land for four landing pads around Allegiant Stadium, at 3625 W. Russell Road, and is negotiating with 12 other potential landing sites around the Strip and downtown.

UPWIN will travel in predetermined “sky highways” approximately 500 feet over the ground (that’s 500 feet lower than excursion helicopters) in gas-powered Robinson single-engine R44s, with room for three or four passengers each.

The system will also include a proprietary air traffic control system that “would involve using military AI tech to predict and control it using remote AI sensors throughout the entire system,” Lauer said.

“If you take a helicopter to Summerlin, they will be able to predict that there will be an open spot to land there,” Lauer said. “The last thing we want are traffic jams in the air. That’s the very thing we’re trying to avoid!”

How So Cheap?

Lauer proposes a rideshare model that he says can bring costs down to as little as $30 per person.

If you’re flying from Red Rock to Fremont Street, that’s a five-minute flight. And if you’re sharing it with three or four other people, we can do potentially eight flights in an hour. When you take an Uber, you’re on a 30-minute ride stuck in traffic.”

Lauer says he’s currently negotiating with the owners of a dozen possible landing sites, including parking lots in Summerlin and Henderson, as well as the rooftops of several casino garages on the Strip and downtown.

He also says UPWIN could be used for emergency air ambulance services and direct flights to hospitals.

Each location would need to be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration for helicopter use.