Rich person in airport town nearly nabbed by copper, despicable type (9)
I believe the answer is:
plutocrat
'rich person' is the definition.
(a plutocrat is a rich and powerful person)
'airport town nearly nabbed by copper despicable type' is the wordplay.
'airport town' becomes 'Luton' (site of London Luton Airport).
'nearly' means to remove the last letter.
'nabbed by' means one lot of letters goes inside another (nab can mean to steal or take possession of).
'copper' becomes 'pc' (police constable).
'despicable type' becomes 'rat' (I've seen this in other clues).
'luton' with its final letter removed is 'luto'.
'luto' placed within 'pc' is 'plutoc'.
'plutoc'+'rat'='PLUTOCRAT'
'in' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for plutocrat that I've seen before include "One rich and powerful" , "Powerful rich man" , "Richest man" , "powerful rich type" , "Man of means" .)