The Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) has secured its first-ever global customer-experience accreditation from Airports Council International (ACI), the world’s leading association of airport authorities representing over 2,000 airports.
NAIA said it achieved Level 1 Airport Customer Experience Accreditation, marking the first time the country’s main gateway has been recognized by ACI for meeting international standards in managing and improving the passenger experience.
The accreditation comes a year after New NAIA Infra Corp. (NNIC), a consortium led by San Miguel Corp. and Incheon International Airport Corp., took over operations under a public-private partnership (PPP) awarded in September 2024.
The recognition affirms the early results of NNIC’s dual focus on customer-experience management and physical modernization, which together raised NAIA’s passenger satisfaction to 4.06 out of 5 in the latest ACI Airport Service Quality (ASQ) survey. This is above the 4.0 performance requirement under the concession agreement.
“Earning the ACI accreditation this early says a lot about the people working every day to improve NAIA,” NNIC president Ramon said in a statement.
“We still have a lot to do, but because of their commitment, we are making steady progress in terms of upgrading the airport’s systems and strengthening the service culture that travelers experience,” he said.
The accreditation stems from ACI’s Airport Customer Experience Accreditation program, the only global framework that evaluates how airports understand, measure and improve the end-to-end passenger journey.
From July to September 2025, the ACI ASQ survey gathered real-time feedback from 700 arriving and departing passengers across all terminals. NAIA achieved 100-percent compliance with ACI’s sampling and data standards, allowing its results to be included in the organization’s global benchmarking program.
NAIA handles 50 million passengers annually, placing it among the region’s busiest airports.
Under NNIC, NAIA recorded quarter-on-quarter improvements across staff courtesy, check-in efficiency and terminal facilities. To further enhance the passenger experience, NNIC recently opened the 6,000-square-meter Mezzanine Food Hall at Terminal 3, with additional food halls and restaurants set to open across Terminals 1 and 2 by early 2026.
Physical upgrades are also underway, from infrastructure rehabilitation and terminal expansion to new power systems, modernized baggage handling, the rollout of the new Collins biometric passenger processing system and improved digital information systems, among others.
NNIC remitted over P57 billion to the national government in its first year, the highest revenue share ever recorded for a Philippine airport concession, showing how the PPP is delivering tangible benefits to both government and the public.
