Dublin Airport recently carried out a piece of research to gather the perspective of the local community regarding the airport, its future development, and its operational impact.

The survey design, fieldwork and analysis were undertaken by Red C, a well-known research company in Ireland. 500 face-toface interviews were carried out by trained interviewers among adults aged over 18 who are resident within the Fingal electoral districts of Swords, Rush-Lusk, Howth-Malahide, and Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart.

The survey findings indicate that Dublin Airport is widely known and respected in the community. Positivity towards the airport is strong, with 43% of respondents giving daa/ Dublin Airport a score of 8 out of 10 or higher. This contrasts with the 9% of respondents who indicated a negative response in giving a score of 3 out of 10 or lower.

The primary drivers of the positivity towards the airport are the employment provided by Dublin Airport and its overall impact on economic development within the community. The primary drivers of negativity towards the airport are noise pollution and associated issues.

All respondents could identify areas which require additional focus; most notably, the airport could improve its communication with the local community and is perceived as lacking in openness and responsiveness.

A full survey report will also be published in due course, containing a detailed breakdown of the findings across the many topics surveyed including views on airport development, community initiatives, sustainability focus areas and personal experiences of noise.

The team will now take these survey results, alongside feedback from other channels, and begin to implement actions to address areas for improvement. The resurrection of our Community Newsletter this summer, is one such action we are taking to address the area of communication for example. We plan to re-do the survey again in two years to measure whether the actions implemented have addressed key issues raised.