Construction Review Online
Joel Mairura
25 Nov 2025
One of the world’s largest airports in the Philippines, the New Manila International Airport has been marked as a sinking airport. Earlier this year, Global Witness noted that the airport projections were overly optimistic as it entirely disregarded the risks. Once complete, the airport is expected to cover 2,500 hectares of land. This is twice as big as the JFK International Airport. Furthermore, it is nearly three times bigger than Sydney Airport. It will also have the capacity of handling 100 million annual passengers.
The problem is that within 30 years, sinking land and floods could render this $15 billion project defunct. The reason for construction is to ease the pressure currently being experienced by the nation’s busiest and biggest airport, Ninoy Aquino International. The airport received 50 million people last year through its terminals. However, Ninoy Aquino wasn’t designed for this level of traffic. It was only meant to handle between 35 and 40 million passengers each year. Because of the increase, this airport is gaining a reputation for major crowding and delays. However, with Manilla fully occupied and Ninoy Aquino locked in, there is no room for expansion. Hence, a new airport was considered. Access to the airport will be made possible by projects such as the interconnected bridge and infrastructure innovation in the Philippines which the Asian Development Bank allocated $650 million...
