Smoother skies ahead for Manila airport after privatisation?

Improvements seen with private consortium at the helm, but travellers must pay a price

- Mara Cepeda

Flying out of the Philippines' main international airport used to mean packing a whole lot of extra patience alongside your passport. But with a private consortium now helming the controls, passengers are starting to see hints of smoother skies ahead, even as pockets of turbulence remain.

Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) has long been notorious for its lengthy waiting times, power failures and even bedbug-infested rattan chairs. On New Year's Day in 2023, an airport-wide power outage caused widespread flight cancellations and delays, grounding thousands of passengers for hours.

The airport, which opened in 1948, has been operating beyond its designed capacity of 35 million passengers for years, with clogged air traffic and delayed flights resulting in it being consistently ranked as one of the world's worst airports.

Most recently, NAIA came dead last in a study released in November 2024 by Australian price monitoring firm Compare the Market, which assessed 61 major airports based on their accessibility, cleanliness and efficiency.

But change is in the air after the New NAIA Infrastructure Corporation (NNIC) took over management and operations in September 2024.

The NNIC consortium, led by Filipino tycoon Ramon Ang's San Miguel Corporation, won the 170.6 billion peso (S$4 billion), 15-year deal from the Philippine government to overhaul the 77-year-old gateway's ageing facilities.

Under the deal, the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), which used to operate NAIA, now serves as airport regulator.

The consortium aims to almost double the airport's capacity to 62 million passengers annually, and improve air traffic movements to 48 per hour from 30 to 40 currently.