Japan Airlines Launches Humanoid Robot Trial for Baggage Handling at Haneda Airport

Japan Airlines has unveiled a humanoid robot trial at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, where the machines will handle baggage and clean aircraft cabins. The trial, which started at the beginning of May, tests these tasks to address Japan’s labor shortages driven by an aging population, shrinking workforce, and booming tourism demand.

Japan Airlines stated it will trial the humanoid robots as workers at the airport.

The Chinese-made humanoids will move luggage and cargo on the tarmac at Haneda, which handles more than 60 million passengers a year. A media demonstration took place at the airport on Monday, where a 130cm-tall robot manufactured by Hangzhou-based Unitree pushed cargo onto a conveyor belt next to a Japan Airlines passenger plane.

The experiment, a partnership with Japan Airlines GMO Internet Group, ends in 2028.

Yoshiteru Suzuki, president of JAL Ground Service, said using robots to perform physically demanding work would reduce the burden on workers and provide significant benefits to employees. He added that certain key tasks such as safety management will continue to be performed by humans. The trial aims to deploy robots permanently as a solution to Japan’s chronic labour shortage.

More than 7 million people visited Japan in the first two months of 2026, according to the Japan National Tourism Organisation. Japan Airlines will introduce humanoid robots on a trial basis from the beginning of May, with tasks including baggage handling and cabin cleaning.

The robots can operate continuously for two to three hours, and the firms plan to use them for other tasks such as cleaning aircraft cabins. Tomohiro Uchida, president of GMO AI and Robotics, said that while airports appear highly automated and standardised, their back-end operations still rely heavily on human labour and face serious labor shortages.

The initiative comes amid a surge in inbound tourism and forecasts of more severe labour shortages.