The Ninoy Aquino International Airport or NAIA (IATA Airport Code:MNL) is the international airport that serves Manila, in the Philippines, and its surrounding metropolitan area. It is the main international gateway of the country..

It is located along the border between Pasay City and Parañaque City in Metro Manila. It is about 7 kilometers south of the country's capital Manila, and southwest of the Makati Central Business District.

NAIA is managed by the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA).

Structure

Runways

NAIA has a primary runway (3,354 m) running at 061°/241° and a secondary runway (2,425 m) running at 136°/316°.

Terminals

NAIA has two operational international terminals, with a third one scheduled for completion by 2004, and a separate domestic terminal.

The first terminal, NAIA-1, is the original terminal and was constructed in 1981. The 67,000 square meter terminal was designed by Filipino architect Leandro V. Locsin and has a design capacity of 6 million passengers per year. It currently serves all non-Philippine Airline international flights.

The second terminal, NAIA-2, was finished in 1998 and is popularly called the Centennial Terminal since 1998 was the centennial year of the declaration of Philippine independence. The 75,000 square meter terminal was originally designed by Aéroports de Paris to be a domestic terminal, but the design was later modified to accommodate international flights. It has a capacity of 2 million passengers per year in its international wing and 4 million in its domestic wing. Terminal 2 is the home of Philippine Airlines and other airlines and is used for both its domestic and international flights.

The third, much larger terminal, NAIA-3, was approved for construction in 1997 and is nearly complete. The modern US$ 500 million, 189,000 square meter facility was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) to have a capacity of 13 million passengers per year. However, a legal dispute between the government of the Philippines and the project's main contractor, PIATCO, over alleged anomalies in the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) contract, is holding completion and opening of the terminal.

The Domestic Terminal on the old Airport Road used to handle all domestic air traffic, excluding Philippine Airlines. Currently, the terminal composed of two single-story buildings serves the domestic flights of other local carriers, most notably Cebu Pacific, Air Philippines, and Asian Spirit.

Other structures

The airport also serves as a gateway facility of the logistics company DHL, and hosts the aircraft repair and maintenance facilities of German firm Lufthansa Technik AG, a division of Lufthansa.

History

The original airport that served Manila, the Manila International Air Terminal, was opened in July 1937 on Nielson Field, located in what is now the central business district of Makati. In 1948, the airport was moved to its current site adjacent to the Villamor Airbase, which was then called Nichols Field. The original structure was built on what is now the site of the NAIA-2. In 1981, a new structure was built to accommodate growing air traffic, and this new structure is what is now NAIA-1. Previously named Manila International Airport, it was later renamed to its present name after the EDSA Revolution, in honor of Benigno Aquino Jr., whose nickname was Ninoy. Ninoy was the husband of former president Corazon Aquino, and the oppositionist senator was assassinated at the airport after he arrived in the country following his political exile.

Plans for a new terminal were conceived in 1989, when the Department of Transportation and Communications commissioned Aéroports de Paris to do a study to expand the Ninoy Aquino International Airport's capacity. The recommendation was two build two new terminals, and so NAIA-2 and NAIA-3 were built in the succeeding years.

On December 11, 1994, Philippine Airlines Flight 434 was flying on its second leg of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport - Mactan-Cebu International Airport - New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport) route when a bomb on board exploded, killing a passenger. The airliner was able to make an emergency landing. Authorities later found out that Ramzi Yousef planted the bomb on the airliner to test the bomb for his Project Bojinka plot. His project was discovered in Manila after an apartment fire on the night of January 5 and the morning of January 6, 1995.

If Project Bojinka had not been discovered after a fire in Manila, Philippines, one or more aircraft owned by a U.S. carrier/s flying to this airport would have blown up over the Pacific Ocean on January 21, 1995 as part of the project's first phase.

External links

• Manila International Airport (http://203.160.181.151/miaa/)