Perth has decided to allow smoking at the airport – not in the main concourse but in specially designated smoking rooms. The West Australian reports that a purpose-built smokers’ area is being built at the southern end of the domestic terminal. It will open next month, with a second facility to follow in the international terminal.
Smoking rooms – usually unadorned and grim-looking places with extractor fans working overtime to suck out as much smoke as possible – are a feature of many airports in Asia and Europe. Even Singapore Changi has one, though Singapore’s official policy is firmly anti-smoking.
Those airports accept that if smokers cannot smoke in flight, they may want to do so on arrival. Airports don’t want smokers sneaking illicit puffs in toilets.
In Australia, the Airports Act 1996 prohibits smoking in any part of an airport in which there is a sign bearing the words ‘No-Smoking’. While designated smoking rooms are permissible, they have been removed from, or not installed at, Australian airports. As a result, desperate smokers rush outside and light up outside terminals, creating clouds of passive smoke that plagues non-smokers and risks the health of children.
Australian Council on Smoking and Health president Mike Daube labelled the prospect of a purpose-built smoking room at Perth Airport “a shocking step backwards”.
The airport should just have banned smoking outright, he said.
Western Australia, famed for its healthy lifestyle, has one of the lowest rates of smoking in Australia.
“We can now confidently predict that smoking will decline from 16.6% nationally (14.8% in WA) to below 10% within a few years, and will then go into freefall,” Daube said last year.
Cigarettes kill one in two regular users, he added.
Written by : Peter Needham
(Source: eglobaltravelmedia.com.au)
Health Experts Fume Over Perth Airport’s New Smoking Rooms
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