Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Becomes The Largest Airport In The U.S. To Ban Smoking
Smoking lounge sign at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
New Years Day was the last day that smokers and vapers were able to enjoy a cigarette in the nation’s busiest airport. A city ordinance passed by the city of Atlanta in July of 2019 outlawed smoking and vaping in a variety of public places including the city’s airport, officially setting an expiration date for Hartsfield-Jackson’s current smoking lounges. The ban officially went into effect on January 2nd of this year.
In enacting the ban, Hartsfield-Jackson becomes the biggest airport in the nation to officially pull the plug on smoking and facilities for smokers. Already, many other airports in the United States ban smoking but until now, Atlanta’s airport had been a holdout.
Hartsfield-Jackson is the largest airport in the country by passenger volume. In 2018, the airport saw over 55M passengers transit through its terminals, almost 10M more than through Los Angeles International, its closest competitor. Delta Air Lines, the legacy air carrier based out of Atlanta, Georgia, operates the lion’s share of flights out of Hartsfield-Jackson.
With the blanket ban now in effect in Atlanta, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that only Las Vegas McCarran, Washington D.C. Dulles and Nashville airports still have indoor smoking zones available. McCarran is roughly half of the size of Hartsfield-Jackson and sees about 24M passengers per year.
Broadly speaking, smoking inside of U.S. airports has actually been banned for several years, but to get around that restriction, many private lounges have been built for smokers in which to take refuge. Hartsfield-Jackson alone had seven lounges across each of its concourses (amenities that were still listed on its website as of publication) while other major airports such as Frankfurt have similar facilities.
To get their fixes in, smokers at Hartsfield-Jackson now need to migrate towards five outdoor smoking zones outside of security. In addition to that, Hartsfield-Jackson is launching a unique accommodation program for passengers caught off guard by the changes: through the end of the month, any passenger who can’t get to an outdoor smoking zone can pick up a free lozenge from two dozen concession stores around the airport. The full list of outdoor smoking zones and concessions carrying the lozenges is posted on a new landing page hosted by the airport.
With Hartsfield-Jackson’s ban now in place, McCarran airport in Las Vegas will take the throne as the largest airport in the country to selectively allow smoking. As the hotel and gaming industries are well-entrenched in that city, however, a global smoking ban at McCarran may be harder to pass.