Stansted airport smoking areas: outdoors only, and none past security

Stansted airport's smoking areas are all outdoors, outside the single terminal building, and you use them before you go in and before security. The airport keeps them clearly marked, and its own advice is to use the designated areas before you enter the terminal. They sit on the forecourt at the front of the building, with the area by the bus and coach stops the one most travellers head for, a short step from the doors and fitted with bins for cigarette ends.

There is nothing to pay and no time limit: they are open-air spots away from the entrances, not booths or rooms. Because they are landside, in front of the search, you can use them whether you are flying out, waiting to meet someone, or have just come off a flight and out through arrivals. If you cannot see a marked area, the terminal map and walking times show where they are, or ask a member of staff at the door. The fuller picture of what sits where in the building is on the airport services hub.

This is the part that catches smokers out: there is no smoking area airside. Once you are through the security search, there is nowhere to smoke or vape anywhere in the departure hall, the satellites or at the gates. Stansted has no smoking lounges, no ventilated booths and no outdoor terrace past the search, and you cannot leave the secure area for a cigarette and come back through. The airport puts it plainly: there are no smoking areas inside the terminal, including after security.

So your last chance is outside, before you go through. After that you wait until you land at your destination and step outside there. On the early-morning Ryanair and Jet2 departures you can be airside for an hour or more before boarding, and longer again if the flight slips, so plan for a wait with no cigarette rather than assuming you will find a spot past the search. While you are airside the cafes and bars are where most people pass the time, and for what the search itself involves, see the Stansted security page.

Vapes and e-cigarettes are treated exactly like cigarettes here. You can use them in the same outdoor areas before security, and not inside the terminal at all, on either side of the search. Heated-tobacco devices fall under the same rule. The official wording is explicit that the no-smoking policy covers e-cigarettes and vapes, so there is no vaping at the gate, in the toilets, or in a cafe airside.

You can still carry a vape or e-cigarette through security and onto the aircraft, subject to the usual rules: the device and any spare batteries travel in your hand luggage, never in a checked bag, and you cannot use or charge it on board. The liquids and hand luggage rules cover what else needs to come out of your bag and the 100ml limit on any e-liquid. Using a vape inside the terminal can get you stopped by staff, so keep it for the outdoor area.

If you smoke or vape, the one thing to get right at Stansted is timing your last one before security. Build it into the order you do things: drop any hold bags at check-in, use the outdoor area at the front of the terminal, then go through. The airport advises being at security at least 2 hours before departure, and on the busy early wave the queue and the walk to a far gate eat into that, so do not save the cigarette for when you are already inside hunting for a spot that is not there.

If you are early with time to spare, the forecourt area is a brief detour on the way in. If you are running late, it comes down to the cigarette or the queue, and the queue has to win, because missing the gate is the worse outcome by far. For how much time to leave overall, the departures guidance covers the early peak, and the live queue on the screens at the security entrance is the thing to read on the day rather than a figure fixed on a page.

Two situations are worth spelling out. If you are connecting through Stansted, there is no airside way to smoke between flights: you would have to clear UK passport control, leave the terminal for the outdoor area, then check in and pass through security again for the next flight. That is rarely worth it on a tight connection, and most Stansted itineraries are point-to-point rather than connecting, so treat a smoke break between flights as a non-starter unless you have hours in hand.

Flying back into Stansted is simpler. The same outdoor areas are there when you land: come through arrivals, out onto the forecourt, and you are at the smoking area with no extra walk. If someone is collecting you by car, the kerbside and the free Mid Stay hour covered on the picking someone up page are both a short step from where you can smoke, and you can check the landing time first on the Stansted arrivals board.