If you’re taking a robotaxi to the airport, maybe you should leave earlier than normal.
An Inglewood man’s trip from a Phoenix-area airport took an unexpected turn late last year when the driverless vehicle he was riding in became uncontrollable. In a video posted to the internet, Mike Johns can be seen in the back seat of a Waymo car, circling around a parking lot.
In the video, which was posted to LinkedIn several weeks ago, Johns called Waymo customer service, saying that the car wouldn’t stop and he needed to catch his flight. The agent on the other end of the line could be heard asking him to attempt to end the ride on his app, but he ignored her, saying there must be a way for her to pull the vehicle over, and that he expected Waymo to “cover his flight” if he missed it.
Waymo, a ridesharing service similar to Uber or Lyft, which offers rides using self-driving cars, issued a statement saying Johns was not charged for the ride, and that the delay lasted a few minutes.
The company offers what it bills as “autonomous ride services” in Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Austin, having provided some four million rides last year. The company has been noted for several incidents involving the vehicles, including instances where the cars animals or human cyclists.
The company also told The Guardian that the software glitch that affected Johns’s ride has since been fixed.
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The story Johns related on LinkedIn and later to the media highlights his concerns over the driver-less technology, particularly in regards to the fact that the customer service line he spoke with didn’t have a way to stop the vehicle on their own. It was unclear how the ride ultimately ended—whether Johns was able to end the ride on his app, or whether the agent was able to manually end the ride for him.
How Can Travelers Respond?
What should travelers do if they are stuck in a rideshare—human-driven or otherwise—on the way to catch a flight?
A benefit of the services is that the movements of the vehicle are tracked. In the case of driverless technology, the entire record of every input is stored in the ride details in case the company or the rider needs to refer to them. For traditional, driver-operated services, whether or not drivers stick to the navigation provided for them in their apps is also recorded.
Airport-bound travelers should always ensure they have a full charge on their phone during their trips and should check the app on a non-critical trip to see how they should contact customer service for help in the event they experience a problem with their ride.
Travelers should also allow ample time to catch their flight in the event of delays en route to the airport (if a five-minute delay in a ride to the airport results in a missed flight, that’s cutting it too close). It is uncommon for transportation providers to reimburse airline tickets in the event of missed flights unless the delay in delivering their passengers to the airport is significant.
Most U.S. airlines have an official or unofficial “flat tire rule” where they will rebook passengers or allow them to standby without collecting an additional fare, provided they arrive at the airport within a reasonable amount of time after their flight was originally scheduled to depart (typically within two hours). Many travel insurance policies will also cover missed flights for similar circumstances beyond the traveler’s control, as long as they provide documentation like a police report or statement from their transportation provider.
Whether it’s a driver or the vehicle itself doing the driving, it’s ultimately the responsibility of the traveler to ensure they arrive at the airport with enough time remaining to catch their flight, after allowing for the possibility of en route delays.
