Philippine airports entered a period of heightened readiness as the December travel rush pushed passenger volumes close to pre-pandemic levels, prompting operators to rely more heavily on contactless processing and health-risk monitoring systems.
According to New NAIA Infra Corp. (NNIC), about 2.55 million passengers are expected to pass through the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) complex from December 20, 2025 to January 4, 2026. On peak days, daily traffic is projected to exceed 170,000 passengers.
NNIC reported that NAIA handled 171,306 passengers and 950 flight movements on December 20, 2025, the airport’s highest single-day total for the year.
Meanwhile, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) said nearly 980,000 airline passengers are expected to travel through CAAP-managed airports nationwide during the same holiday period. Authorities said the scale of the rush has accelerated the use of digital tools designed to reduce congestion, limit physical contact points, and support public-health preparedness.
Holiday congestion and respiratory health risks
The December travel surge presents not only an operational challenge but also a public-health concern. Dense queues, enclosed terminals, and prolonged indoor exposure coincide with seasonal circulation of respiratory viruses.
The Department of Health (DOH) reported 6,457 influenza-like illness (ILI) cases nationwide from September 28 to October 11, 2025, a figure 25 percent lower than the previous two-week period but still indicative of ongoing respiratory activity. DOH officials have consistently emphasized that respiratory infections follow seasonal patterns and that crowding increases transmission risk, especially indoors.
As a result, airport health measures now focus less on diagnosing disease at borders and more on risk management—keeping passenger flows moving while reducing exposure in crowded spaces.
What airports mean by “AI health monitoring”
In airport operations, “AI health monitoring” refers to automated analytics that support screening, surveillance, and crowd management, rather than clinical testing.
One visible example is AI-assisted thermal imaging, where software analyzes infrared camera feeds to flag elevated skin temperatures in moving crowds. Another is environmental surveillance, which looks for pathogen signals in pooled samples such as aircraft wastewater. A third involves touchless digital processing, which shifts health declarations and credential checks to QR-based systems to shorten queues and reduce document handling.
Scientific evidence shows why these tools operate as part of a layered system. A peer-reviewed study in PLOS ONE found that thermal image scanning at airports was unlikely to detect influenza reliably because many infected travelers do not present with fever. A modeling study in Eurosurveillance during the early COVID-19 period also showed that symptom-based screening would detect fewer than half of infected travelers.
Health authorities therefore stress that thermal screening—AI-assisted or not—serves best as a triage trigger, not a definitive barrier.
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From fever checks to population-level surveillance
Globally, post-pandemic airport health strategies have shifted toward surveillance systems that do not rely on individual symptoms.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) operates a Traveler-Based Genomic Surveillance program that monitors communicable diseases among arriving international travelers at select airports. The CDC says the program includes aircraft wastewater sampling, collected either from individual planes during routine servicing or from airport systems that aggregate wastewater from multiple flights.
Peer-reviewed studies support this approach. A 2025 Nature Communications study found that aircraft-linked wastewater monitoring can detect virus variants associated with international travel and provide early warning signals. A Nature Medicine commentary published the same year discussed the feasibility of a global aircraft-based wastewater surveillance network as an early detection tool.
Researchers emphasize that wastewater surveillance supports population-level situational awareness, not identification of individual infected passengers.
Clean indoor air as health infrastructure
While screening technologies attract attention, experts say ventilation and filtration offer broader and more durable protection.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that improving indoor ventilation and air distribution can significantly reduce airborne transmission of respiratory viruses. Meanwhile, ASHRAE introduced Standard 241-2023, which sets minimum requirements to reduce infectious aerosol transmission in buildings.
ASHRAE guidance notes that MERV-13 filters or better can remove at least 85 percent of particles in the 1–3 micrometer range, which includes many respiratory aerosols. As a result, airports increasingly treat clean indoor air as part of resilience planning during peak travel seasons.
The Philippines’ touchless travel framework
In the Philippines, the most consistently documented nationwide health-risk measure at airports remains digital travel processing.
Under the government’s eTravel platform, passengers must register within 72 hours before arrival or departure and present a QR code during boarding and processing. The platform collects health-declaration data to assist border authorities when necessary.
Airlines have integrated this requirement into passenger advisories. Philippine Airlines, for example, instructs travelers to complete eTravel registration within the same 72-hour window to avoid delays.
Authorities have also warned that eTravel registration is free, and that websites charging fees are fraudulent.
For vaccination records, official responses on the government’s Freedom of Information portal confirm that VaxCertPH serves as the country’s digital vaccination certificate. Although vaccination requirements have eased, the infrastructure for digital credential verification remains relevant for future public-health contingencies.
Passenger acceptance of digital systems
Airports’ reliance on contactless systems also reflects passenger behavior. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) 2025 Global Passenger Survey, 50 percent of travelers reported using biometric identification at airports, up from 46 percent the year before. The survey also found that 86 percent of users were satisfied with biometric processes.
In addition, 78 percent of passengers said they prefer a single digital platform that combines travel documents and credentials, signaling growing acceptance of digital workflows during peak congestion.
December travel in a global context
The Philippine holiday rush mirrors global trends. A Financial Times report citing OAG data said global air travel during the 2025 Christmas season is expected to reach 309 million passengers between December 15 and January 4, about 4 percent higher than a year earlier.
International experience explains why airports emphasize layered systems. Studies consistently show that thermal screening alone has limited sensitivity, while environmental surveillance offers early warning but requires strong governance and integration with public-health response.
What is verified—and what is not
Verified information shows record holiday passenger volumes, mandatory digital travel declarations, and established vaccination-certificate infrastructure in the Philippines. DOH and the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine continue to operate ILI and influenza surveillance networks that inform public-health decisions.
However, there is no public documentation confirming that Philippine airports currently operate airport-wide AI thermal systems or aircraft wastewater surveillance equivalent to CDC programs in the United States. Any such claims would require official confirmation.
Why layered systems remain essential
Experts agree that no single technology can eliminate risk. WHO guidance on ventilation and ASHRAE standards reflect a shift from trying to detect every infected traveler to making indoor spaces safer by design. Digital processing reduces congestion, which in turn lowers exposure risk during peak travel periods.
As December travel demand surges, Philippine airports rely on verified tools—digital declarations, contactless processing, and coordination with national surveillance—while monitoring global developments in AI screening, environmental surveillance, and air-quality standards.
Public-health research and aviation data converge on one conclusion: layered systems that combine digital efficiency with environmental controls offer the most realistic way to keep passengers moving—and safer—during the year’s busiest travel season.
Photo by Zhuo Cheng you on Unsplash
