Two companies based in the Freeport Area of Bataan have teamed up to upgrade the passenger experience at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) through a new biometric e-gate system designed to accelerate immigration processing.
New NAIA Infra Corp. (NNIC), a consortium led by San Miguel Holdings, and technology firm iWave unveiled the service at Terminal 3 on Wednesday.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. witnessed the ceremony, which introduces facial recognition and passport scanning technology to reduce the immigration process to 15 or 20 seconds.
The project marks a collaboration between major Freeport Area of Bataan (AFAB) stakeholders. iWave teamed up with travel technology provider Amadeus to develop the phased roll-out of the system.
NNIC president Ramon Ang and iWave president Ramon Garcia led the launch alongside government officials.
AFAB administrator and chief executive Hussein Pangandaman attended the event to support the locators, accompanied by Office of the Administrator group head Percival Peralta and chief of staff Bing Kimpo.
Pangandaman said the occasion brought together three parties from the “FAB Family” to support the modernization of the country’s main gateway.
He noted that both project partners are registered locators while AFAB operates as an agency under the Office of the President.
The new infrastructure aims to address long-standing congestion issues at the airport by automating identity verification.
While the initial roll-out is focused on Terminal 3, the consortium plans to expand the digital system across other terminals to standardize the passenger experience.
