The Japanese aviation industry, known for its precision and high standards, has in recent years faced a double challenge \u2013 on the one hand an unprecedented surge in the number of tourists visiting the country, and on the other hand a local population that is aging and shrinking. To cope with the heavy burden placed on ground workers at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, which serves more than 60 million passengers a year, the national airline Japan Airlines (JAL) has decided to recruit new “colleagues” who do not require a salary, but only regular charging breaks.<\/p>\n
Starting this month, the company will begin a professional trial as part of which humanoid robots will be integrated into the demanding field work on the runways. The move, carried out in cooperation with the internet group GMO, is intended to examine how the technology can ease the physical burden placed on human porters, with the aim of deploying the machines permanently if the trial proves successful.<\/p>\n
As part of a demonstration held last week for journalists in Japan, the capabilities of the new robots were presented, manufactured by the Chinese company Unitree. The robot, which is about 130 centimeters tall, was seen carefully pushing cargo onto the baggage conveyor next to a passenger aircraft. According to the plan, the robots are capable of operating continuously for two to three hours before they require recharging. In addition to transporting cargo on the runway, the company plans to expand their use to additional tasks that require a large workforce, such as cleaning passenger cabins inside aircraft between flights.<\/p>\n
The need for extreme technological solutions stems from Japan’s complex demographic situation. In just the first two months of 2026, more than 7 million tourists visited the country, a direct continuation of the record year 2025 in which nearly 43 million people visited Japan. While demand for aviation services is soaring, the local workforce is declining, and estimates indicate that the country will need millions of additional foreign workers in the coming decades to maintain its growth targets. The chairman of JAL’s ground services division, Yoshihiro Suzuki, emphasized that the use of robots to perform physically demanding tasks will inevitably reduce the burden on existing workers and provide them with significant advantages in the demanding work environment of the airport.<\/p>\n
However, despite the enthusiasm for the technological integration, ground operations clarify that the machines will not replace humans in all areas. Suzuki noted that critical key tasks, foremost among them safety management at the airport, will continue to be carried out exclusively by skilled human teams. Representatives of GMO added that while airports appear outwardly as automated and standardized places, the logistical operation behind the scenes still relies heavily on manual labor. The current trial, which is expected to continue until 2028, constitutes a significant step in the attempt to bridge the gap created between technological progress and the complex physical reality of the modern aviation world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Japanese aviation industry, known for its precision and high standards, has in recent years faced a double…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7041,8,13744,907,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-17329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tokyo","8":"tag-airport","9":"tag-japan","10":"tag-robot","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-tokyo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}