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Losing your suitcase is a rite of passage for travelers, something you can usually blame on human error. Having your bags stolen by a robotaxi before you even reach the inside of the terminal, however, is a new frustration fit for 2026.
Last week, San Francisco Bay Area man Di Jin took what he said was his first ever ride in a driverless taxi from his home in Sunnyvale, California to the San Jose Mineta Airport. The roughly 20-minute trip went smoothly enough, Jin said. But when he pulled up to the airport, the Waymo barely gave him time to get out before speeding off with his luggage still in the trunk, throwing his travel plans into chaos.
“I pressed the trunk open button, tried to get my luggage, but it doesn’t do anything, and it drives away immediately,” Jin told NBC about the episode.
He says he immediately hit Waymo’s customer service line, where a rep told him the vehicle was already en route to the storage depot and couldn’t be turned around. Jin, forced to choose between boarding his upcoming flight or hunting down his luggage, chose to go through with his trip without his suitcase.
Per NBC, Waymo later emailed Jin that “we have your luggage safely secured at our local depot!” (Waymo didn’t respond to the broadcaster’s request for comment.)
Unfortunately for him, Waymo said it was “unable to cover the cost of shipping labels or courier fees,” meaning that for Jin to get his suitcase back, he’d have to pay the shipping fees himself. Or, the company told him, he was free to trek over to the Waymo depot to pick it up himself, which they’d cover his trip to and from.
“It doesn’t make any sense at all, because it’s not my mistake,” Jin told NBC, adding that both options sound terrible. “I already told them very clearly it’s not lost and found, right? I pressed the trunk open button, and it’s just not functional.”
More on autonomous vehicles: AV Companies Might be in Trouble Now As Cops Start Ticketing Driverless Cars
