Ninoy Aquino International Airport, known by its IATA code MNL and commonly called NAIA, traces its origins to 1948, when airport operations moved from the aging Nielson Field to the current site at Nichols Field, adjacent to what is now Villamor Air Base in the cities of Pasay and Parañaque, roughly 7 kilometers south of Manila. The original one-story bungalow terminal built that year served as Terminal 4. A longer international runway, designated 06/24, was added in 1954, and a dedicated international terminal followed in 1961. After a fire damaged that structure in 1972, a replacement was built, itself superseded by the present Terminal 1, which opened in 1981 with a floor area of 73,000 square meters.

The airport was renamed in 1987 under Republic Act No. 6639, honoring former senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., who was assassinated on its tarmac on August 21, 1983, after returning from exile. Terminal 2, known as the Centennial Terminal, opened in 1999 and was designed by Aéroports de Paris, originally conceived as a domestic facility before being adapted to serve Philippine Airlines' international routes. Terminal 3, the complex's largest at 182,500 square meters, was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and opened in 2008 after years of construction delays and legal disputes over its build-operate-transfer agreement.

NAIA's terminals function as effectively separate airports: none is connected by internal walkways, and minimum connection times between terminals can stretch into hours. Despite this structural quirk, the airport handled over 50 million passengers in 2024, an all-time record. Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific use it as their primary hub, while Philippines AirAsia and dozens of international carriers also operate regular services. A second runway, 13/31, intersects the main runway at an acute angle, creating the distinctive crossed-runway geometry visible in ADS-B flight path visualizations.