Dunedin Airport in New Zealand lets you have your hugs but you must keep it short and sweet—or head to the parking lot instead.
Airports are always charged with emotions. It’s a silent witness to sad goodbyes, the eager anticipation ahead of a new adventure, or the boundless joy at welcoming a loved one back home.
Our very own NAIA is an all-too frequent backdrop for these emotional moments. It may be one of the world’s worst, but it’s a bastion of heartfelt instances shared among those who consider each other dear.
Emotional airport moments have also been immortalized in films, one of the most famous of which is Love Actually, where London’s Heathrow Airport was so pivotal, it might as well have been a character. A line uttered by Hugh Grant’s Prime Minister David (I don’t think he has a surname, does he?) comes to mind when I think of airports: “Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere.”
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Whatever kind of love it is, or be it elation, despair, or excitement, in the context of airports, many of these emotions are best expressed with a hug. But what if an airport imposes a time limit on this most heartwarming of human gestures?
Do your ‘fonder farewells’ elsewhere!
This is exactly what Dunedin Airport in New Zealand did—imposing a new three-minute time limit on goodbye hugs in the airport’s drop-off area to prevent traffic jams. And people are unhappy about it.
“Max hug time three minutes,” warn signs outside the terminal, adding that those seeking “fonder farewells” should do so at the airport’s parking lot instead, according to a report on the Associated Press.
The so-called “cuddle cap” was imposed in September to “keep things moving smoothly” in the redesigned passenger drop-off area outside the airport, explained airport CEO Dan De Bono, as quoted in the same report. This is not the first time a hug limit was imposed by an airport. Over at Aalborg, Denmark, a similar sign has been spotted, with the words, “Kiss and goodbye. No Kisses above 3 mins!” per an article on The Independent.
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The hug limit at Dunedin Airport also acts as a substitute for more stringent measures used at other airports, which warn of wheel clamping or fines for drivers parked in drop-off areas. Some airports in the United Kingdom, moreover, impose fees for all drop-offs, no matter how lightning quick. At Dunedin, at least, there are no fines, nor are there “hug police,” De Bono assures passengers.
Still, the move sparked a heated debate online, particularly on Facebook. It may have come from good intentions and serve a practical purpose, but is it a tad too inconsiderate of people’s feelings?
De Bono says many netizens accused them of breaching basic human rights. Katie Rosseinsky, the journalist who wrote the article on The Independent mentioned above, laments: “Have we really got to a point where we prioritize good traffic flow and efficiency over the opportunity to give the people we’re closest to a proper pre-travel send-off?”
Some will argue that you can do the prolonged hugging elsewhere, but you can’t really control your emotions all the time, can you? This is especially true when it comes to huge, life-altering moments as in those first hellos or final farewells that are all-too common at airports.
There are those, however, who welcomed the new policy, with some even marveling at how an airport still has a free drop-off area at all, given the general rise in fees and fines in airports worldwide, per a report on CNN.
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To strengthen his case, De Bono cited a study saying a 20-second hug is long enough to release the happy hormones oxytocin and serotonin, adding that anything longer was “really awkward.” I beg to disagree Mr. De Bono, but do whatever you think is better for travelers passing through your airport.
Anyway, should you find yourself saying goodbye to someone special in this airport, you can have a longer embrace at the parking lot, where you can cuddle free of charge for up to 15 minutes.
With the near-constant clogging of the arteries leading to NAIA’s four terminals, who knows, this could give the new airport administration another idea to better make the passage through our notorious airport more seamless. Many of us, for sure, are hoping that won’t be the case.
In the foreseeable future, at least, we can hug for a little more than three minutes (but make sure you’re not inconveniencing others, please!) as we say our hellos and goodbyes at the country’s primary gateway.
