Waymo has been granted a permit to start testing its autonomous vehicles at San Francisco International Airport, ahead of the launch of a commercial service.
The San Francisco mayor’s office announced Tuesday that the airport, known as SFO, and Waymo have signed a “Testing and Operations Pilot Permit” after years of back-and-forth negotiations. The deal with SFO comes just two weeks after Waymo was cleared to start testing at nearby San Jose Mineta International airport — and as Tesla is also trying to elbow its way into offering ride-hail service to these airports.
SFO is not the first airport that Waymo will serve; the company has been operating at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport since 2023. But SFO has been a target for Waymo for just as long, if not longer, as it’s the biggest airport serving the company’s home base of Silicon Valley.
Airport authorities initially rebuffed Waymo back in 2023, but this year Waymo was granted a permit to start mapping the airport, a clear indicator that the relationship had thawed.
The newly-granted permit allows Waymo to move forward in three phases. The first will see Waymo test its AVs in autonomous mode with a “trained specialist” behind the wheel. The second will involve Waymo testing passenger service with employees and airport staff. The third phase will allow Waymo to start offering paid rides.
Once Waymo enters that third phase, the company says it will offer pickups and dropoffs at the airport’s “Kiss & Fly area,” which requires an AirTrain ride to reach the terminals. The company says it intends to “explore other locations at the airport in the future.”
Waymo spokesperson Chris Bonelli told TechCrunch that the company will begin testing “very soon,” but declined to put a time frame on the remaining phases. He said that the third phase of offering paid rides will continue on a “month-to-month” basis while Waymo works with SFO on a “sustained commercial operations permit.”
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Offering rides to and from SFO would be the latest in a growing list of accomplishments for Waymo this year. The company has expanded to multiple new cities, with an increasing number of partners, like Uber, and more are on the horizon for 2026. Waymo has been growing its service area in Silicon Valley as well, making service to SFO seem increasingly inevitable.
This story has been updated with new information from Waymo about timing.
