Police Scotland respond to almost 1,000 incidents at Scottish airports in two years

Police were called to almost 1,000 incidents at Scottish airports in the last two years, figures show.

Across all 14 airports, officers responded to 983 incidents in 2021 and 2022, according to figures published in 1919 magazine’s July edition.

The figures obtained through freedom of information requests to Police Scotland revealed the vast majority of incidents occurred at Scotland’s three largest airports: Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen; including 122 thefts, 27 assaults and 38 drug-related offences.

Officers were also called out to six incidents involving weapons and three of fire-raising across the three airports.

The figures found there were 719 incidents at Glasgow Airport – about 14 times the number of callouts to Edinburgh (51) despite the capital’s airport recording 11.2 million passengers last year, compared to 6.5 million in Glasgow.

Some 136 incidents were also logged in Aberdeen and 42 at Glasgow Prestwick.

The police data also includes incidents which occurred outside of terminal buildings, including speeding, drink and drug-driving, and careless driving.

A spokesman for AGS Airports, which owns and operates Aberdeen and Glasgow Airports, told the magazine a “zero-tolerance approach” is taken towards disruptive behaviour.

“Millions of people pass through our airports each year and do so without incident thanks to our industry-leading Campus Watch initiative, which has been in operation for ten years,” the spokesman said.

“In the event of a potentially disruptive situation, the thousands of people employed across the airports operate on a spot it, share it, stop it to initiate any required action.

“While instances of this type of behaviour continues to be extremely rare, we will also continue to operate a zero-tolerance approach to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our passengers and staff.”

An Edinburgh Airport spokesman said: “We work closely with Police Scotland to deter and report any incidents that arise in and around the campus.

“While the vast majority of passengers do act responsibly, we remind everyone that we have a zero-tolerance approach to any criminal activity and the relevant authorities will act when and where appropriate.”