{"id":299497,"date":"2026-05-04T18:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T18:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/299497\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T18:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T18:41:13","slug":"meet-bebop-humanoid-robot-causes-southwest-flight-delay-out-of-oakland-airport-national-and-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/299497\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Bebop: Humanoid robot causes Southwest flight delay out of Oakland Airport | National and World News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here for updates on this story<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0OAKLAND, California (KGO<\/a>) — 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 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

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.<\/p>\n

\u200bTHE-CNN-WIRE (TM) & \u00a9 2026 CABLE NEWS NETWORK, INC., A TIME WARNER COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Click here for updates on this story \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0OAKLAND, California (KGO) — Passengers on a Southwest Airlines flight from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-299497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299497","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=299497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}