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Except for an occasional cigar I am not a smoker. But I can imagine that it’s frustrating that you have to hand in your lighter each time you board a plane. If you’re a smoker and land at Shanghai Honqiao Airport you are lucky: At the exit of the terminal you can choose another one from the lighters they confiscated there from departing passengers.
I noticed that many people took a lighter from the pile, I had to wait about a minute in order to take a picture without any passengers in it. I think this is a great idea, otherwise the airport would probably throw the lighters away or auction them off.
I am a Dutch entrepreneur in Shanghai who has lived and worked over 12 years in China. Co-founder of among others Tudou.com and unitedstyles.com, advisor to Spil Games for which I set up and led the Asian operation (2006-2011), and angel investor in Chinese Internet and tech start-ups. Married to Grace, with whom I have a son (Scott) and a daughter (Elaine). These are my personal views and do not necessarily represent the companies I am involved with. You can reach me at marcvanderchijs (at) gmail (dot) com
3 Responses to “A service for smokers at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport”
As much as I hate smoking, I love the practicality of this.
I saw the same stand when I came back from Beijing and mentioned the same thing to Andreea. Everything in China gets recycled…there is very little which goes to waste, and I only wish other mainstream airport did similarly.
Frankly, I wish everyone stopped smoking, but that's a subject for another post.
I noticed that in Xiamen airport they put the free lighter box at the exit of the international flights, just before you enter in the public arrival hall. Useless, because people arriving from international flights didnot have to hand in their lighter at the departure. At least not coming from Hong Kong, Thailand. There is no free lighter box at the arrival of domestic flights. But on domestic flights within China you always have to hand in your lighter. They put the free lighter box at the wrong exit.