Rideshare becoming popular alternative for domestic travellers

CALGARY — With different COVID-19 guidelines around the world and uncertainties flying, many Canadians are turning to domestic travel, and for some, getting to their destinations means ride shares.

Something many are finding could not only save them money but could also make them some extra cash.

Calgary based airline company WestJet recently underwent schedule changes due to the pandemic disrupting travellers plans.

In Kelowna, the international airport had to halt flights for 36 hours due to wildfire smoke, and in Toronto, international travellers will find lines for the fully vaccinated and for the non-vaccinated.

But, the demand to travel is there.

“Now, with all of this disruption, we are definitely seeing a trend with people trying to find other ways to get around that are non-traditional,” said Flo Devellennes, the CEO and co-founder of Poparide.

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Poparide is an app designed for city-to-city carpooling.

Drivers that are already heading to a city post on the app where they are going and how many seats they can fill — their passengers compensate them in gas money.

During the peak of the pandemic, Poparide lost 80 per cent of its revenue in 15 months, but as domestic travel returns, so does business.

“When restrictions were lifted in Canada, most Canadian provinces, we’ve seen 150 per cent growth in bookings on our platform, 100 per cent growth in July alone,” said Devellennes.

Similar ride share programs exist on Facebook, such as the group B.C. Alberta Ride Share.

Travellers in the group post what city they are trying to travel to and the comments fill up with people driving that same route.

CityNews spoke to some of those people who said they chose ride shares over flights, saying flying is too expensive right now, and in the past week many posts included driving to Kelowna as flights were unavailable.

The owner of the Facebook group, Terry Lacroix, says during COVID-19 he wanted to shut the page down, but the demand was too high.

Just in the past 3 months, Lacroix says he had to hire a moderator due to the increase in posts.