New Zealand airport imposes three-minute limit on hugs

Measure intended to forestall extended embraces from causing postulation jams, but airdrome won’t person ‘hug police’.

An airdrome successful New Zealand has imposed a three-minute bounds connected farewell hugs.

The CEO of Dunedin airport, Dan De Bono, said connected Tuesday the caller regularisation was imposed successful September to “keep things moving smoothly”. The measurement is designed to forestall extended embraces starring to postulation jams astatine the provincial transport hub.

A motion precocious placed successful the country of the airdrome reserved for dropping disconnected passengers reads “Max hug clip 3 minutes”. Those seeking “fonder farewells” should caput to the airport’s car parkland instead, it recommends.

The regularisation has polarised societal media users, De Bono said, with pictures of it going viral online.

“We were accused of breaching basal quality rights and however situation we bounds however agelong idiosyncratic tin person a hug for,” the CEO told The Associated Press quality agency. He asserted that others had welcomed the change.

The bounds is intended to beryllium a substitute for measures utilized astatine different airports which pass of instrumentality clamping oregon fines for drivers parked successful drop-off areas. Some airports successful the United Kingdom enforce fees for each drop-offs, nevertheless brief.

A motion for the drop-off country is displayed astatine the Dunedin airdrome successful Momona, New Zealand [File: Sarah Soper/Dunedin Airport via AP]

De Bono said Dunedin’s airdrome – a humble terminal serving a metropolis of 135,000 radical connected New Zealand’s South Island – went the “quirky” route.

Three minutes is “plenty of clip to propulsion up, accidental farewell to your loved ones and determination on”, helium said. “The clip bounds is truly a nicer mode of saying, you know, get connected with it.”

The CEO said a 20-second hug unsocial is capable to merchandise the wellbeing-boosting hormones oxytocin and serotonin.

Anything longer? “Really awkward,” helium said.

However, the caller clip bounds volition not beryllium strictly enforced beyond telling radical to determination to the car park.

“We bash not person hug police,” De Bono said.