A Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed which UK airports experience the highest number of crimes and violent crimes, relative to their number of passengers. London Southend Airport (SEN) experienced the most crimes, and the most violent crimes, relative to its number of passengers, in each of the past three years. Three UK airports, including Norwich Airport (NWI), did not experience any violent crimes between 2023 and 2025.
How Does SEN’s Crime Rate Compare?
The FOI request was sent to all UK police forces which manage an area containing a commercial airport. It asked how many crimes and how many violent crimes had been recorded as taking place at that airport in each of the past three calendar years (2023-25).
SEN, which is under the jurisdiction of Essex Police, was the location of the greatest number of crimes relative to its total number of passengers, in all three years. Over 104 crimes were recorded for every 100,000 passengers using SEN in 2023. This was much higher than the 6.55 crimes recorded per 100,000 passengers at the second highest airport on the list, London Luton Airport (LTN). SEN’s crime rate did however reduce to 49 crimes per 100,000 passengers in 2024, and 34.1 crimes per 100,000 passengers in 2025. The number of violent crimes committed per 100,000 passengers at SEN also fell, from 22.6 in 2023, to 18.1 in 2024, and 13.1 in 2025. SEN’s rate remained over 13 times higher than the number of crimes per 100,000 passengers recorded at London Gatwick Airport (LGW) throughout this time, which was second on the list in each of the three years.
At the other end of the spectrum St Mary’s Airport (ISC) in the Isles of Scilly and Land’s End Aiport (LEQ) which is also under the jurisdiction of Devon and Cornwall Police, did not experience any crimes or violent crimes between 2023 and 2025.
This also applies to NWI, which is under the jurisdiction of Norfolk Constabulary, and handled over three times as many passengers as ISC and LEQ combined across the three years.
What the Data Doesn’t Show
Several police forces were unable to reply to the FOI request.
This includes the Metropolitan Police, which is the police force responsible for recording crime at London Heathrow Airport (LHR), the busiest airport in the UK. The Metropolitan Police stated that it could not answer the request, as the data was not held in a searchable format.
Also absent from the data are Manchester Airport (MAN), London City Airport (LCY), Southampton Airport (SOU), Humberside Airport (HUY), and all airports under the jurisdiction of Police Scotland.
The lack of data from these sources makes drawing conclusions about trends in airport crime more difficult. The data does however show a slight correlation between the number of crimes per 100,000 passengers at an airport and the crime rate of the Police Force Area that is a part of. This correlation is not statistically significant.
Similarly, the number of crimes and violent crimes per 100,000 passengers across the airports sampled decreased between 2023 and 2024, and between 2024 and 2025.
The rate of decline in each of these years, however, was also statistically insignificant.
Have you ever witnessed a crime being committed at an airport? What steps should be taken to make airports safer? Let us know in the comments.
