Airports are critical transportation infrastructures whose ability to withstand, absorb, and recover from disruptive events has become increasingly important under growing operational, technological, and environmental uncertainties. This study aims to investigate the causal structure of airport resilience by identifying the key driving and dependent factors that shape system performance under disruption. To this end, a fuzzy DEMATEL approach is employed to analyse the interdependencies among fifteen resilience criteria encompassing infrastructure reliability, emergency preparedness, cybersecurity, organizational management, and recovery capability. The results reveal that backup power generation equipment and emergency response procedures for hazardous materials act as the most influential driving factors within the resilience system. In contrast, airport runway restoration operations in a timely manner runway, cybersecurity protection measures, and personnel-related operational performance are found to be predominantly affected by other criteria. The integrity of the safety management system emerges as the most prominent criterion in terms of overall system interaction, highlighting its central yet dependent role in integrating multiple resilience dimensions. Furthermore, cyber threat identification capability is identified as a balanced factor, functioning simultaneously as both a cause and an effect within the system.
Kısmet Cingöz (Fri,) studied this question.