Uber has apologized today for promoting surge pricing to and from JFK during yesterday’s protest and taxi strike.
After the enactment of an executive order barring refugees and visa holders from seven countries from entering the U. S., protests gathered at JFK International and the NY Taxi Workers Alliance called for a stop on pickups from the airport. Uber said that riders could go to and from JFK without surge pricing, prompting major public backlash that the company was taking advantage of the situation. The whole fiasco led to a trending #deleteuber tag, calling on users to delete the app and switch to alternatives like Lyft.
‘We’re sorry for any confusion about our earlier tweet — it was not meant to break up any strike,” a spokesperson for Uber said. “We wanted people to know they could use Uber to get to and from JFK at normal prices, especially last night.”
Uber was one of the first to come out publicly with a direct and measurable way to address the ban, but the #deleteuber movement is a reminder of how quickly good will can be undone with a communications misfire — especially for the aggressively-expanding Uber.
