A Japanese airline is introducing humanoid robots at airports due to a labor shortage

The Chinese-made robots—models from Unitree Robotics—will primarily be used for loading and unloading cargo containers. In the future, the airline also plans to use them for cabin cleaning and ground handling operations. During the demonstration, one of the robots was moving cargo onto a conveyor belt next to an aircraft parked at the steps.

The project is being implemented in response to the severe labor shortage facing the Japanese aviation industry. Over seven million foreign visitors visited Japan in the first two months of this year. The increase in inbound tourism coincided with a long-term decline in the country's working-age population. JAL currently employs approximately four thousand ground staff.

According to Tomohiro Uchida, President of GMO AI & Robotics, despite the perception of airports as highly automated, their internal infrastructure remains heavily dependent on manual labor and suffers from a serious labor shortage. According to JAL Ground Service President Yoshiteru Suzuki, shifting physically demanding tasks to robots will "inevitably reduce the workload on employees." However, he emphasized that certain functions—primarily security management—will remain the exclusive domain of humans. Robots are already being used at a number of Japanese airports for patrolling grounds and serving retail outlets.