Stakeholder engagement and asset management: a case study of the Gold Coast airport, Queensland

One of the fastest growing industries—aviation—faces serious and compounding challenges in maintaining healthy relationships with community stakeholders. One area in aviation-creating community conflict is noise pollution. However, current understandings of the factors that affect noise annoyance of the community are poorly conceptualized. More importantly, the way community needs and expectations could be incorporated in airport governance has been inadequately framed to address the issue of aircraft noise. This paper proposes the utility of adopting an integrated strategic asset management (ISAM) framework [1] to explore the dynamic nature of relationships between and airport and its surrounding area. The case of the Gold Coast Airport (OOL) operator and community stakeholders is used. This paper begins with an overview of the ISAM framework in the context of airport governance and sustainable development—as a way to find a balance between economic opportunities and societal concerns through stakeholder engagement. Next, an exploratory case study is adopted as a method to explore the noise-related complaints, complainants, and possible causes. Following this, the paper reviews three approaches to community stakeholder engagement in Australia, Japan, and UK and discusses their implications in the context of OOL. The paper concludes with a contention that airport governance is likely to be much more effective with the adoption of ISAM framework than without it.