Waymo could have one of its biggest fights to date on its hands as it pushes toward providing rides between San Francisco and SFO — but a permit process is underway to allow the company to begin mapping the airport for that purpose.

Alphabet-owned self-driving taxi operation Waymo has become, in the last year, a fixture of everyday life in San Francisco, for better and worse. We haven't heard any figures defining how much market share Waymo's robot cars have taken from human drivers of Uber and Lyft vehicles, or traditional taxis — which were already struggling in SF after the advent of Uber. But it's clear they must be taking a chunk, with Waymo's white Jaguars visible all over the city at all times.

With competitor Cruise now completely out of the picture for good, Waymo has a lot to gain as it expands to more cities — its cars are already becoming ubiquitous in at least one central swath of Los Angeles — and as it sets out to compete with the other companies for people's airport-ride dollars.

And Waymo's footprint in the Bay Area just expanded in August to include Daly City and Colma, though its cars aren't allowed on freeways yet, only surface streets. And at least one San Mateo County politician, Board of Supervisors Vice President David Canepa, has been vocal in his skepticism about what the county has to gain by allowing Waymo in.

The San Francisco Airport Commission is apparently warmer to the idea of letting Waymo enter the SFO market, but we won't likely be able to hail a Waymo at the airport, or to SFO, anytime in the too-near future. First up, the city and the aiport commission has submitted a request to the Planning Department to initiate a permit process for this, as Mission Local reports today. As that publication notes, "there is, presently, not a 'Mapping the airport for driverless cars' permit," so first that permit type will need to be created.

"Under the Proposed Project, autonomous vehicle companies would be allowed to deploy up to two autonomous vehicles operated by human drivers to map the publicly accessible roads at the Airport," the permit request reads.

Such a permit would also allow Amazon-owned Zoox to, eventually and theoretically, do its own mapping at SFO. But its funny looking, driver's-seat-free vehicles appear to be more geared for shorter trips within a city than for freeway travel — and Zoox only began testing in one neighborhood, SoMa, last month, so they're a bit behind the curve.

In addition to pushback from taxi drivers and Uber and Lyft drivers, there's likely to be plenty of pushback across the board if Waymo starts stepping on toes — or getting in the way of traffic — at SFO. The Chronicle reported in October that the local Teamsters union has filed an ethics complaint about Waymo, suggesting its executives crossed a legal line in its lobbying activities with airport officials by failing to register as lobbyists.

And that San Mateo County supervisor, Canepa, just reiterated his doubts about OKing self-driving cars to have free rein in the county, speaking to Mission Local. Canepa notes "there is shared responsibility and should be shared funding" when it comes to robotaxies taking freeways and paying fees to operate at SFO — he seems to be suggesting, as other South Bay politicians have, that they're looking for some financial benefit from allowing Waymo to use their streets for its grand experiment in transportation.

At the moment, as Mission Local reports, Ubers and Lyfts pay $5.50 per ride in a fee back to SFO, amounting to about $50 million per year in income for the airport. San Mateo County may want some share of that windfall if Waymo robots start rolling on 101 in the future.

Previously: Waymo Expands Robotaxi Service Onto the Peninsula, But Still Can’t Drive to SFO or on 101