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Haneda's Bipedal Bet: JAL Tests Humanoid Crews as Asia's Labor Math Bites HONG KONG — Japan Airlines has begun a three-year live trial of two-legged robots at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, a quiet but pointed signal of how the region's biggest carriers now treat the demographic curve as a balance-sheet problem rather than a policy one.
The pilot, run with GMO AI and Robotics, places two Unitree humanoid units on the apron and inside cabins to handle bags, push containers and clean turnaround aircraft.
The unit cost runs near 15,400 US dollars apiece, a number JAL evidently considers a rounding error against a much larger wage bill it can no longer assume will be there. The choice of a bipedal form is the tell.
Airports across the Asia-Pacific were laid out for human bodies — narrow jet bridges, baggage-hold ladders, galley footprints sized for cabin crew. Retrofitting Haneda for wheeled fleets would mean tearing up concourses.
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