According to Airport Council International (ACI) traffic statistics for 2002, Dubai International Airport is the second fastest growing airport in the world. In 2007, it catered to more than 36 million passengers, with approximately 1,000 daily flight events, including takeoffs and landings. In this paper, we report the first assessment of community annoyance caused by civil aircraft noise exposure at nine sites around Dubai International Airport (United Arab Emirates). Our aim is to assess the relationship between aircraft noise levels and annoyance responses in Dubai. To accomplish our goal, we have adapted the WECPNL and L_dn as the aircraft noise indices in Dubai, and the percentage of highly annoyed responses (%HA) has been used to assess the dose–response relationship of aircraft noise. %HA was obtained using social surveys that were carried out at nine sites within close proximity of the airport utilizing the ISO/TS 15666-2003 questionnaire. Subjects ranging between 20 and 65 years in age were randomly selected. Results show that 41% of the respondents said that they are highly annoyed, a percentage considered high but in agreement with similar studies carried out near major airports in other countries.