Visitors to Christchurch International Airport will no longer have to walk "through clouds of smoke" to enter the airport's terminals.

Three designated smoking areas opened today, outside the airport's new terminal, the international arrivals hall and the regional terminal.

Airport chief executive Jim Boult said the smoking areas were created in response to negative feedback from visitors, while also recognising the airport had a "responsibility" to look after smokers.

The visual and health aspects of having smokers "huddled" at the terminal entrances and building frontage detracted from that, he said.

"The prime driver, I guess, is the fact that we had had quite a lot of negative feedback from people entering the airport about people huddling around the doorways [smoking].''

People did not want to walk through "clouds of smoke" to access the terminals, he said.

The new smoking areas include shelter, seating and lighting.

Feedback on the new smoking areas had been "100 per cent positive" from smokers and non-smokers, Boult said.

There was also an important safety reason for the changes.

"We did have some people putting cigarettes in normal rubbish bins and we had rubbish-bin fires. That was not an uncommon occurrence," he said.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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