Developing trust between the local community and airports

While significant reductions in noise levels have been achieved around many airports, adverse community reaction towards airport operations has increased over time. Our previous work has suggested that non-acoustic factors are significant in determining the level of annoyance to aircraft noise events and must now be given a raised priority in the design of noise management strategies. The ultimate goal of managing the non-acoustic factors is to improve relationships with community. One key non-acoustic factor is trust. This paper will look at approaches to developing trust between the local community and airport (and aviation industry). This starts with trust in the data and the tools of community engagement to developed two-way communication with honesty, procedural fairness, open transparency and delivering promises. It will look at case examples of the methods adopted to develop this trust and how well this has worked to date.