Hug It Out

A new measure in New Zealand limiting the length of hugs when dropping loved ones off at the airport has ignited debate and outrage across the country, the Washington Post reported.

Last month, the Dunedin airport on New Zealand’s South Island implemented a cap on hugs in the drop-off zone to reduce traffic during peak travel times: A sign put up in the drop-off zone at the airport reads, “Max hug time 3 minutes. For fonder farewells please use the carpark.”

The airport serves the university town of 135,000 people, with fewer than 1 million passengers passing through it annually, a fraction of the tens of millions of people serviced by Chicago’s O’Hare Airport or London Heathrow.

Even so, traffic backs up, say officials.

Dan de Bono, the Dunedin airport’s chief executive, said that warning messages at other airport drop-off zones can include threats of fines or clamping wheels, something Dunedin wanted to avoid, reported the Guardian.

“We’re trying to have fun with it,” he told the newspaper. “It is an airport and those drop-off locations are common locations for farewells.”

But many New Zealanders aren’t amused. Thousands criticized the rule on a Facebook post that went viral, saying that putting a cap on hug time was unreasonable and even inhumane, according to the Guardian.

De Bono added that Dunedin Airport has no plans to strictly enforce the time limit – although he joked about deploying “hug police,” the Post wrote.

Meanwhile, many think that the allotted time, three minutes, is quite generous. At busy airports in the United States, it’s sometimes prohibited to even stop to say goodbye, some on social media noted.

Even so, while De Bono admitted that three minutes is not the world’s most generous hug limit – Nice airport in France allows five minutes – he demonstrated a shorter hug in front of staff and reporters, quoting a study that suggested a 20-second hug is long enough to release oxytocin, the love hormone.

But Michael Banissy, the head of psychological science at the United Kingdom’s University of Bristol, said on Monday that “for some people, time limits might undermine the natural, comforting nature of hugging, potentially preventing individuals from fully experiencing a farewell hug’s emotional and physiological rewards,” reported NBC news.