Event: Japan Airlines

Thousands of Japanese are defying rising prices at home and the pain of the feeble yen to have one final foreign holiday over “golden week” before airlines increase fuel surcharges.The operator of Narita International Airport anticipates that 1.59 million travellers will pass through the airport on the outskirts of Tokyo between Friday and May 10, an increase of around 2 per cent from last year’s “golden week” holiday season.Sunday was the peak for departures, with nearly 57,000 people flying out, and the peak for arrivals is likely to be May 6.The uptick in departures comes after JTB Tourism Research and Consulting reported 1.09 million departures in February, the most recent month for which figures are available, down 7.4 per cent from the same month in 2025, and down 28.8 per cent from 2019, the year before the pandemic effectively brought the global tourist industry to a halt.Tourist sentiment has been affected by multiple considerations and that the outlook for later in the year is not positive, according to an analyst.People wait in a line to go through electronic customs procedures at Narita International Airport on February 20. Photo: Kyodo“Travellers here are taking a lot of things into account,” said Ashley Harvey, a travel marketing analyst who has worked in Japan’s tourism sector for more than 15 years.

An aerial view of a China Coast Guard ship navigating in the South China Sea. File | Photo Credit: Reuters China denounced remarks by Japan and the European ‌Union about the South China Sea at a U.N. Security Council ​meeting on Monday (April 27, 2026) and accused Tokyo of provocative behavior in ⁠the Taiwan Strait and planning military expansion.Ayano Kunimitsu, a Japanese Vice-Foreign Minister, told the Council meeting on maritime security that Tokyo was seriously concerned about the situation in ‌the East China and South China Seas and reiterated Japan’s opposition to any attempt to change the status quo by force and ‌obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight. Published - April 28, 2026 09:50 pm IST

Watch: Robot helps Tokyo airport crew load cargo... then waves at 'colleague'Japan Airlines (JAL) will start using humanoid robots in ground handling tasks at Tokyo's Haneda airport from May, in a two-year trial it said is aimed at easing employees' workload.For a start, the Chinese-made robots will be deployed to load and unload cargo containers, JAL and GMO AI & Robotics, its partner in the project, said in a demonstration to the media on Monday.Japan's aviation industry is wrestling with a labour crunch brought on by an increase in inbound tourism and a declining working-age population, said JAL, which employs some 4,000 ground handling staff.The carrier hopes that these robots can also be used to clean cabins and operate ground support equipment in future.Robots are already being used in some airports across Japan, including for security patrol and retail.Japan welcomed more than seven million foreign visitors in the first two months of this year, according to statistics from JTB Group, which runs Japan's largest travel agency."While airports appear highly automated and standardised, their back-end operations still rely heavily on human labour and face serious labour shortages," GMO AI & Robotics' president Tomohiro Uchida told reporters.Using robots for physically demanding tasks will "provide significant benefits to employees", Kyodo news agency quoted Yoshiteru Suzuk, the president of JAL's Ground Service, saying.But he noted that some duties, including safety management, can only be handled by humans.

Japan Airlines (JAL) and GMO AI & Robotics, a unit of GMO Internet Group, have announced a demonstration experiment to utilize humanoid robots for ground handling tasks at Tokyo's Haneda Airport.The roughly three-year test will begin next month with the aim of reducing the need for workers and cutting employee workloads amid a severe labor shortage in the industry.In the test, announced Monday, two robots made in China will carry out tasks such as transporting containers and opening and closing levers that secure them. Future plans include enabling the robots to operate autonomously, thereby expanding the range of tasks they can perform.JAL employs about 4,000 workers for ground handling, which often involves working in tight spaces. The company decided to test humanoid robots in order to save labor while leveraging existing facilities.