New Zealand airport puts three-minute cap on farewell hugs

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — An airport at the bottom of New Zealand’s South Island has found itself at the center of a polarizing debate after introducing a time limit on hugs in its drop-off zone.

Just how long is too long to hug?

Three minutes — the new Dunedin Airport limit — is ample time to activate the happy hormones generated by a good hug, the airport’s chief executive, Dan De Bono, said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

To prove the point, the 40-year-old Dunedin native said he had timed himself earlier that day, going the full quota in front of an audience of airport staff. The hug became a little awkward after 20 seconds, he said, and he resisted the urge to pull away: “I’m not a big hugger. Twenty seconds tops for me.”

Dunedin, with its stone castle and frigid winters, is colloquially known as the Edinburgh of the south. Unlike their Scottish forebears, today’s residents are generally less resistant to physical displays of affection, and offer a “warm southern welcome” to visitors taking in the country’s natural beauty spots, De Bono said.

The airport, servicing a university town of some 135,000 people, is no match for Los Angeles International or John F. Kennedy International airports. It attracts fewer than 1 million passengers a year, compared to tens of millions at America’s busiest airports.

But traffic can still pile up at peak times, according to De Bono. Airport staff hatched the hug-limit plan as a fun way to reinforce safety in the drop-off zone — avoiding dangerous maneuvers as people grew frustrated with traffic pileups.

The early reactions were mostly negative — with some describing the move as inhumane. Now, De Bono said, the pushback is softening as the story has gone viral in world media, with many pointing out that three minutes is pretty generous by global standards.

“You get 3 minutes to hug?? In America, they don’t even want you to stop. Just come to a slow roll and push your passenger out. I’m serious,” one user wrote on social media.

Another noted that in the United Kingdom, some airports levy large fines for stopping even briefly in the drop-off area. De Bono, a trained pilot, recalled being approached by an official with a whistle at the curb at one U.S. airport.

De Bono said Dunedin Airport has no plans to strictly enforce the time limit — although he joked about deploying “hug police” with their minute-timers out to “hold people to account.”

For those needing longer embraces, there is always the car park, De Bono said. A sign in the drop zone informs visitors to use this for “fonder farewells.” And to be clear, he said, hugs are uncapped inside the terminal.

De Bono admits that three minutes is not the world’s most generous hug limit. Nice airport in France has a five minute “Kiss and Fly” park, which he said was “typical of the French.”

During off-peak times, the airport would turn a blind eye to overstayers in the drop-off area. “Between flights, you could have a 20-minute hug, and no one is going to notice,” De Bono said.