Whoever came up with the term for passengers as “self loading freight” likely didn’t see Bebop coming. The 70-pound humanoid robot joined the rest of his flesh-and-blood boarding pass holders in the TSA queue to head for a Southwest flight from Oakland to San Diego last week. It was too heavy to be brought on as carry-on so its owners bought it a seat and that gave the security folks pause. According to FlightRouteXplorer, while the robot entertained fellow passengers, they eventually found a reason to amend but not cancel the device’s trip to a weekend show with its human escorts from Elite Events Robotics. Bebop’s lithium ion batteries are bigger than the 160 watt hour limit (normally 100 but up to 160 with special arrangements) for carry-on batteries.
The flight was delayed by about an hour as the robot’s attendants removed the batteries. They were hoping to get them back in time for a show on Sunday. After the robot was rendered powerless, it was placed in the ticketed seat that had been purchased for the trip. It won’t be the device’s last trip on an airliner. “He’ll be there on Sunday,” company spokeswoman Chana Ben-Abraham told the publication. “We’re overnighting batteries to Chicago tomorrow to hopefully be able to fulfill the next event request.” The company provides the robots as attractions for conventions, trade shows and other events.
Is it sad that the most amazing thing about this whole story is how people were apparently able to act like reasonable adults and reach a peaceful compromise for an oddball situation, and (again, apparently) nobody got arrested, got fired, threatened someone, or otherwise showed their ass?
If I were one of the other 200 or so passengers on that flight who was delayed over an hour to accommodate the battery removal, I’d be pretty upset with SWA, especially if I missed a connection as a result. Bad decision by SWA, I think — they should have launched the flight on time without the robot and made the robot team take a later flight.