Japan tests robot baggage handlers at Tokyo airport

Tokyo's Haneda airport, also known as Tokyo International, was the third busiest airport in the world in 2025. More than 91 million passengers flew through the airport in 2025. It's the primary hub for Japan Airlines, and for almost 100 years its had to keep up with increasing passenger demand. So, here come the robots.

Announced on April 27, a new pilot will bring humanoid robot baggage handlers to Haneda's tarmac to address ongoing labor shortages across the country. The trial period begins in early May and will run through 2028, deploying robots to do rote tasks within the airport's ground services team.

"While airports appear highly automated and standardized, their back-end operations still rely heavily on human labour and face serious labor shortages," explained Tomohiro Uchida, president of GMO AI and Robotics.

The airport's ground service president, Yoshiteru Suzuki, told the press that the robots would "inevitably reduce the burden on workers and provide significant benefits to employees." The 4-foot-tall robots are manufactured by Unitree, makers of the infamous quadruped "robot dogs" recently tested for their military applications.

The pilot's first phase includes mapping the airport and human worker patterns to determine where robots can operate. Then, the robots will work in simulated airport environments before moving on to the real thing. The airport robots will only get to do some of what their human counterparts are tasked with on a day-to-day basis, including moving baggage onto conveyor belts and, eventually, custodial tasks like cleaning airplane cabins. Humans will continue to oversee key tasks, like safety management.

The robots will also get more breaks than their sentient co-workers: Each unit can only work for two to three hours at a time before needing a recharge.