Record 4.96M passed through NAIA in January 2026 —NNIC

The Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) saw its highest monthly passenger traffic on record in January 2026, according to private operator New NAIA Infra Corp. (NNIC).

In a news release on Friday, NNIC said 4.96 million passengers passed through the country’s main gateway last month.

This surpassed the 4.86 million passengers recorded in December 2025, making January “the busiest month in the airport’s history.”

NNIC said the January 2026 passenger traffic followed a strong holiday travel period from December 20, 2025 to January 4, 2026 when NAIA served nearly 2.6 million passengers across all terminals. 

The airport operator said travel peaked on January 4, 2026 with 180,089 passengers passing through the airport, “the highest single-day passenger volume recorded so far.”

NNIC said international travel continued to drive growth with 2.42 million international passengers recorded in January 2026, up 8.16% from a year earlier and the highest monthly international volume in NAIA’s history. 

Domestic passenger traffic reached 2.54 million, up 3.16% 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,” NNIC said.

“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,” it said.

As of January 2026, NNIC said it 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. —VAL, GMA Integrated News