Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) reported a total of 4.96 million passengers in January this year, its highest monthly passenger traffic on record, extending the momentum from its strongest year to date.
New NAIA Infra Corp. (NNIC), the private operator of NAIA, said 4.96 million passengers passed through the airport during the month, exceeding the 4.86 million recorded in December 2025 and making January the busiest month in the airport’s history.
Passenger traffic followed a strong holiday travel period from December 20 to January 4, when NAIA served nearly 2.6 million passengers across all terminals. Travel peaked on January 4, with 180,089 passengers passing through the airport — the highest single-day passenger volume recorded so far.
International travel continued to drive growth, with 2.42 million international passengers recorded in January, up 8.16 percent from a year earlier and the highest monthly international volume in NAIA’s history. Domestic passenger traffic reached 2.54 million, an increase of 3.16 percent year-on-year.
Despite the higher passenger volumes during both the holiday peak and the rest of the month, airport operations remained stable, supported by operational improvements introduced over the past year.
These included terminal upgrades, the rollout of biometric immigration e-gates and biometric passenger processing systems, as well as closer coordination among airlines, government agencies, and airport service providers to manage queues, flights, and passenger flow.
NAIA serves as the Philippines’ primary aviation hub, handling domestic and international operations. Under the public-private partnership, NNIC is responsible for the airport’s operations, maintenance, and modernization, while ownership remains with the government.
As of January 2026, NNIC has remitted P62.7 billion to the national government since taking over NAIA operations in September 2024, in line with the terms of the airport’s public-private partnership concession.
