After years of negotiations and false begins, Waymo is now allowed to function a robotaxi service to and from the San Francisco Worldwide Airport (SFO). The Alphabet-owned firm stated in a weblog submit Thursday it’s going to start providing entry to SFO to a choose variety of riders earlier than providing it to all prospects within the coming months.
Pickups and drop-offs will happen on the SFO Rental Automotive Middle, which is accessible through AirTrain. Waymo stated it plans to serve further airport places sooner or later.
Waymo’s SFO win comes as the corporate faces criticism and issues about security in a number of the cities it operates. Waymo revealed Thursday that one in every of its robotaxis struck a baby close to an elementary faculty in Santa Monica. The Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration (NHTSA) is investigating the January 23 incident, during which the kid sustained minor accidents. Waymo can also be being investigated by the NHTSA and the Nationwide Transportation Security Board over the unlawful conduct of its robotaxis round faculty buses.
Entry to airports, and significantly SFO, is crucial to Waymo’s enterprise mannequin, which hinges on geographic scale and a excessive quantity of riders.
“Serving rides to and from San Francisco Worldwide Airport delivers one of the requested options for our riders and additional deepens our relationship with the town,” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana stated in an announcement.
The corporate has accelerated its plans over the previous 12 months, launching into new cities, growing its fleet dimension, and including freeways to the place it operates. Waymo robotaxis now service many of the San Francisco Bay Space and down into Silicon Valley, the place it has entry to the San Jose Airport. It additionally operates in elements of Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, and most of Phoenix, together with curbside service to the Phoenix Sky Harbor Worldwide Airport.
Waymo’s push to function at SFO has taken years. It tried and didn’t safe a allow in 2023 to map SFO, a primary step to bringing its robotaxis there. Waymo then rebooted negotiations with the town and airport authority and was granted a allow in March 2025 that will permit it to map SFO with some data-sharing strings connected, in line with language within the settlement seen by TechCrunch on the time.
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By September, SFO and Waymo signed a testing and operations pilot allow, pushing the corporate nearer to business operations on the airport.
