{"id":296525,"date":"2026-05-02T12:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T12:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/296525\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T12:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T12:10:16","slug":"humanoid-robot-causes-southwest-flight-delay-out-of-oakland-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/296525\/","title":{"rendered":"Humanoid robot causes Southwest flight delay out of Oakland Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Passengers on a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to San Diego arrived more than an hour late Thursday after an unusual traveler — a humanoid robot — prompted a runway delay.<\/p>\n

The 70-pound robot, named Bebop, was traveling for work when it became the focus of questions and safety checks before departure.<\/p>\n

Before boarding, Bebop even put on a brief show for passengers.<\/p>\n

But once the robot was strapped in, concerns arose.<\/p>\n

“Then they come and start asking, what kind of batteries does it have? What’s going on with this? X, Y and Z. They want to see it,” said Eily Ben-Abraham with Elite Event Robotics.<\/p>\n

“And meanwhile, I’m, like, watching his flight, and I keep seeing online, ‘runway delay,'” said Chana Ben-Abraham with Elite Event Robotics.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Southwest Airlines said Bebop’s lithium battery exceeded the airline’s maximum allowable size and was confiscated, leading to the delay.<\/p>\n

Elite Event Robotics<\/a> said it is now working to recover the battery before its next scheduled appearance.<\/p>\n

Dustin Dorsey: “So, will Bebop be joining you on another flight then in the future?”<\/p>\n

“He’ll be there on Sunday,” Chana Ben-Abraham said. “We’re overnighting batteries to Chicago tomorrow to hopefully be able to fulfill the next event request.”<\/p>\n

“At the moment, we got him under 100 pounds, so I shouldn’t have to worry about actually, like, walking him through the terminals,” Eily Ben-Abraham said.<\/p>\n

The delay ended, and the flight continued — leaving behind a travel story that could only be told in the Bay Area.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Passengers on a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to San Diego arrived more than an hour late Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[125787,125789,125788,125790,125560,64073,143,145,144,22374],"class_list":["post-296525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-bebop","tag-chana-ben-abraham","tag-eily-ben-abraham","tag-elite-event","tag-elite-event-robotics","tag-humanoid-robot","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-southwest-airlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}