Waymo robotaxis now offers rides to and from San Francisco International Airport

After years of negotiations and false starts, Waymo is now allowed to use robotaxi to and from San Francisco International Airport (SFO). The Alphabet Company he said in a blog post Thursday will begin offering access to SFO to select passengers before rolling it out to all customers in the coming months.

Pick-up and drop-off will take place at the SFO Rental Car Center, which is accessible via AirTrain. Waymo said it plans to provide additional space at the airport in the future.

Waymo’s SFO win comes as the company faces criticism and safety concerns in other cities where it operates. Waymo revealed Thursday that one of them robotaxis hit the kid near the elementary school in Santa Monica. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating the incident on January 23, in which the child suffered minor injuries. Waymo too is being investigated and NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board for the unauthorized movement of its robots around school buses.

Access to airports, particularly SFO, is critical to Waymo’s business, which depends on the size of the facility and the number of passengers.

“Offering round-trip transportation to San Francisco International Airport provides one of the most requested services for passengers and deepens our relationship with the city,” Waymo Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in a statement.

The company has accelerated its plans in the past year, launching new cities, increasing the size of its fleet, and expanding the freeways where it operates. Waymo robotaxis now operates from the San Francisco Bay Area to Silicon Valley, where it can travel to the San Jose airport. It also serves locations in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, and most of Phoenix, including coastal operations. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

Waymo’s push to work at SFO has been years in the making. They tried and failed to obtain permission in 2023 to map SFO, the first step in bringing its robotics there. Just stay there resumed the conversation and city and airport managers and was granted a license in March 2025 that would allow it to map SFO and other data-sharing cables, according to language seen by TechCrunch at the time.

By September, the SFO and Waymo signed a pilot license, pushing the company closer commercial activities at the airport.