"Inhumane" sign at airport shocks travellers
A sign at a New Zealand airport has sparked outrage among travellers, with the policy controlling people's emotional farewells.
Photos of the sign at Dunedin Airport have gone viral, with the sign reading, "Max. hug time 3 minutes. For fonder farewells please use the car park,” in an attempt to combat airport traffic congestion.
Despite the reasons behind the unusual signage, some users on Facebook slamming the “inhumane” limit on travellers’ allotted time to say goodbye to loved ones.
“You can’t put a time limit on hugs! that’s inhumane,” one person wrote.
Another person chimed in, “I love it. It shows warmth and compassion. My local airport it would be ‘you can’t stop there’ – there’s a £100 fine if you stop and a minimum £5.00 to drop someone off in the drop-off zone. I love Nice airport – they have ‘Kiss and Fly.’”
Others also joined in poking fun at the strange new rule, with one person writing, “I can see the airport worker now … 2:56, 2:57, 2:58, 2:59 OK time to break it up!”
Another joked, “In America, they don’t even want you to stop. Just come to a slow roll and push your passenger out.”
The airport's CEO Daniel De Bono said that it redesigned its drop-off zone to improve safety and congestion around the terminal, telling New Zealand’s RNZ radio the change was made due to space considerations.
He said, “There’s only so much space we have in that drop-off area and too many people are spending too much time on their fonder farewells in the drop-off area. There’s no space for others.”
De Bono then citied a study that suggests a measly 20-second hug is enough to get the oxytocin and serotonin release people get from hugging, saying, “We’re not here to tell people how long they should hug for. It’s more a message of, ‘Please move onwards.’ If you’re going to spend however long, sit in the car park. You get 15 minutes free and it provides space for others who only want a 20-second hug.”
Image credits: Facebook