Naia logged record 4.96M passengers in January

Departing passengers check their flight schedule at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 in Paranaque City on Sunday, December 21, 2025, as they catch their respective flights 4 days before Christmas day. —INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

Travel influx over the holiday season continued to drive passenger volumes at the country’s main gateway, as Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) logged its highest monthly passenger traffic on record in January.

Naia served 4.96 million passengers in the first month of 2026, according to the San Miguel-led New Naia Infra Corp. (NNIC), surpassing the previous high of 4.86 million logged in December 2025 by 2.06 percent.

Holiday travel continued to drive volumes, with the airport handling 2.6 million passengers from Dec. 20 to Jan. 4 alone.

NNIC said Naia’s single busiest day on record fell on Jan. 4, a Sunday, when 180,089 travelers passed through the airport’s terminals.

“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,” NNIC said in a statement on Friday.

The record-setting January performance followed a record year for Naia in 2025, when annual passenger traffic reached an all-time high of 52.02 million.

International travel remained the main growth driver for Naia in January, NNIC said. The airport recorded its highest monthly international passenger volume, with 2.42 million travelers passing through, up 8.16 percent from the previous year.

Int’l travel drives growth

Domestic passenger traffic stood at 2.54 million, up 3.16 percent from the same period last year.

Since NNIC took over Naia’s maintenance and operations in September 2024, the Ramon Ang-backed company has remitted P62.7 billion to the national government as of January 2026.

This was in line with a public-private partnership concession for Naia that channels 82 percent of collections to the government.

NNIC said it had rolled out several facility upgrades at the airport, including expanded terminal facilities and the deployment of biometric immigration e-gates and biometric passenger processing systems.

Passenger volumes are expected to climb further in March as Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific prepare to expand their jet services at Naia, following the transfer of their turboprop operations out of the Manila gateway.