As they are a place of both greetings and farewells, airports have a tendency to bring out emotions in people.
While the days of walking a loved one to the gate (or, in the reverse case, running off the plane and into somebody’s arms) ended with the changes made after 9/11, one will often see people in protracted hugs by the check-in gates, near the line for security and in the drop-off area used by those who are giving a loved one a ride but not paying for parking to go inside the airport.
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In the case of the latter, one airport in New Zealand decided to introduce a limit on the amount of time one could spend locked in an embrace with the car idling nearby.
Airport to passengers: ‘Max hug time three minutes’
"Max hug time three minutes,” reads a new sign posted at Dunedin Airport (DUD) on the country’s South Island. “For fonder farewells please use the car park.”
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While the reasoning was to avoid the traffic congestion that arises due to the large number of people who say goodbye in this way in the drop-off area, the sign caused serious displeasure among both locals and those who saw it after it went viral on the internet.
“Hug for more than three minutes? Believe it or not, straight to jail,” wrote one commenter under the CharacteristicallySo username on Reddit.
“Overhug, underhug,” reads another.
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Airport responds: ‘We’re not here to tell people how long they should hug’
In an interview with local outlet Radio New Zealand, Dunedin Airport Chief Executive Dan De Bono said that the sign was envisioned as a lighthearted way to tell people to keep the time they spend at the drop-off area short and allow for the flow of traffic
"We're not here to tell people how long they should hug for," De Bono said. "It's more the message of please move on. If you're going to take longer, move to the car park."
That said, De Bono also admitted that the sign has managed to cause "quite a stir," so the airport would reconsider how to best communicate the same message.
Internet users were quick to dig up that the regional Aalborg Airport (AAL) in northern Denmark has long had a drop-off area sign reading "kiss and goodbye” and “no kisses above three minutes” but has somehow managed to escape the same ridicule on the internet. Going in the other direction, Frankfurt International Airport (FRA) in Germany purposefully designates the drop-off area in some of its terminals as the “Kiss And Ride.”
Amid the congestion that is often created at airport drop-off areas, the strategy is commonly to have traffic workers circle the area to remind drivers that they need to move on — an imperfect solution due to the resources and number of staff needed to work as intended.
"There's only so much space we have in that drop-off area,” the airport official said further. “Too many people are spending too much time with their fonder farewells at the drop-off sign. There's no space for others.”
