A record-breaking, privatised NAIA now, a 100-million-capacity successor rising in Bulacan — Manila is building both ends of its aviation future.
Ninoy Aquino International Airport handled 52.02 million passengers in 2025 — the highest annual total in its history, up from 50.1 million in 2024 — and then immediately broke its own records: December 2025 was the busiest month ever (4.86M), January 2026 beat it (4.96M), and 4 January 2026 became the busiest single day with 180,089 travellers.
The turnaround is institutional. Since New NAIA Infra Corp. (San Miguel-led) took over operations in September 2024 under a PPP that channels 82% of collections to the state, the operator has remitted ₱62.7 billion to government, committed ₱72 billion to upgrades within a ₱170.6-billion rehabilitation, and projected ₱911 billion in state revenues over the concession — the largest PPP of its kind in Philippine history. On the ground: biometric immigration e-gates, upgraded processing systems, and stable operations through peak surges.
Network news: Air Canada and Air India entered in 2025; PAL took delivery of Southeast Asia’s first Airbus A350-1000 for transpacific flying; and Cebu Pacific and PAL are expanding jet services at NAIA as turboprops shift out.
Thirty kilometres north in Bulacan, San Miguel is building the ₱735-billion New Manila International Airport on roughly 2,500 hectares of reclaimed land: four planned parallel runways, initial capacity of 35 million passengers a year, designed to scale to 100 million. The first runway remains on track for 2028 — possibly by Q2 — while the passenger terminal and logistics centre (needing ~7 million cubic metres of fill sand, squeezed by competing Manila Bay reclamation) follow by end-2026 and beyond.
The strategy is a classic two-airport release valve: NAIA modernised and capacity-capped, NMIA built for the next fifty years of growth — with expressway links (NALEX) tying the island to the metro.
The practical decision today: fly NAIA T3 and time your arrival. The biometric e-gates have genuinely changed the arrivals experience — carry-on-only travellers report gate-to-taxi in 10–15 minutes at off-peak — but the holiday peaks are now record-breaking, so avoid the Christmas–New Year window if you can. What to watch: the NMIA runway’s 2028 date. When Bulacan opens, expect progressive airline migration, fare competition on trunk routes, and a repricing of everything within NAIA’s catchment — including the Newport hotel cluster across from T3.
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