Calendar year 2024 was a busy time for WHILL Inc., which saw strong adoption of its autonomous-driving wheelchairs at airports around the world. The devices are most suitable for travelers who have difficulty walking long distances or have hidden disabilities as opposed to those who require permanent wheelchair use for mobility.
“We launched in the Miami airport with Envoy, which is the wheelchair pusher there and American Airlines; and so we’re serving about 60 gates in the Miami airport in the D and E terminals,” WHILL Mobility Services North America president Tres Izzard told RGN at this fall’s Future Travel Experience conference and exhibition in Long Beach. “And that was followed up by a launch with American Airlines and also Envoy at LAX in February.”
Reflecting further on Tokyo-based WHILL’s impressive 2024 growth trajectory, Izzard noted that Alaska Airlines and its wheelchair pusher G2 launched a trial of the autonomous wheelchairs at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. “And in Europe, in September we launched at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, and we’ve got trials going in both Rome and Barcelona.” WHILL also further spread its wings in Japan where every major airport now uses its autonomous wheelchairs.
Passenger reception has been “very, very positive,” according to the WHILL executive, as the autonomous wheelchairs are being seamlessly integrated into wheelchair assistance operations such as at Miami International. “So, some people get pushed by human pushers, some people get on electric carts, and many people get on the autonomous chair. And so, it’s kind of just another tool that the push operators use to deliver passengers to the gate,” Izzard explained.
In the United States, he observed, wheelchair push vendors often “focus their human resource capital, if you will” on ensuring persons of reduced mobility (PRMs) are accompanied and pushed through TSA checkpoints. At a post-security staging area, the autonomous wheelchairs are then waiting for the passengers to transport them to their gates. The devices are preprogrammed with automated routes that a user selects via a touchscreen display.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport this fall launched a trial of the WHILL autonomous wheelchairs. The trial is part of Schiphol’s investigation into offering the service permanently at the airport. Image: WHILL
In order to use the device, a PRM needs to be able to get in and out of the chair of their own volition. “You also need to be able to walk short distances like down the jet bridge or onto the airplane,” Izzard explained.
“So there are some people that can’t do that and need the human assistance. And so, this allows the wheelchair operators to really focus the humans on the people that need human pushes and then use autonomous. Like my mom loves it. She’s 85. She can get in and out of the chair. She can walk down the jet bridge, but she cannot walk a mile to her gate.”
Upon arrival at their gate, the PRM gets out of the wheelchair, and the chair — which is fitted with sensor-based anti-collision technology — automatically drives back to the starting point.
WHILL showcased its latest autonomous wheelchair at the Future Travel Experience exhibition. Image: Mary Kirby
Established in 2012, WHILL’s mobility devices are available via retail. But about five years ago, the company saw an opportunity to incorporate its user-driven wheelchairs and autonomous wheelchairs into the airport environment. WHILL is believed to be the first to offer an autonomous ‘last mile’ transportation solution at airports.
“We are the only company” offering autonomous wheelchairs “that’s operating commercially anywhere in the world,” Izzard told RGN. “We believe we are a trailblazer. That does not mean we dismiss competition, but we’re trying to move as quickly as we can.”
Partnering with wheelchair push vendors at airports is key. “And that’s kind of a focus for us because we’re not going to serve every single passenger. And so, the push operator is the one that must ultimately make the dispatch … whether there’s a human pusher or an electric cart or an autonomous chair. And so, it’s very important to kind of partner with those folks.”
WHILL has also integrated with a system called AvTech, which is what US wheelchair assistance vendors use to staff, dispatch and track passengers.
“And with that integration, the dispatcher scans the passenger’s boarding pass and then can either assign that person to a human pusher or to a WHILL autonomous chair. And it’s tracked just the same way a human pusher is,” said Izzard. “So that was a very important step that we’ve just kind of completed the past couple of months.”
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All images credited to WHILL
