Smoking at Addis Ababa Bole Airport – ADD

Yes — Addis Ababa Bole International Airport (ADD) has designated indoor smoking rooms after security, located in the Terminal 2 international transit/departures area and inside several lounges. This makes it one of the few major African hubs where you can smoke airside during a long Ethiopian Airlines layover without leaving the secure zone.

Bole is Africa’s biggest aviation hub and the main base of Ethiopian Airlines, so it handles huge volumes of connecting passengers on multi-hour transits — exactly the travellers who need to know where the indoor rooms are.

Terminal 2 Smoking Areas (International Departures)

Terminal 2 handles all international flights, and every airside smoking option at Bole sits inside it.

• Public airside smoking room — A-gate corridor. Travellers place it near Gates A11–A12, around the corner from the prayer rooms. It is easiest to find when walking from the C gates toward the lower-numbered A gates; signage in the other direction is weak. Bole’s terminal expansion is ongoing and travellers report the room has shifted position, so treat the exact gate as approximate and ask any staff member for the smoking room if it is not where described.
• Lounge smoking rooms are the more comfortable alternative — see the lounge section below for locations and access.
• Terminal 2 spans the A, B and C gates; if you are waiting at a B or C gate, allow 10–15 minutes to walk to the A-gate smoking room and back.

Smoking During a Transit or Layover

Ethiopian Airlines banks hundreds of connections through Bole in the early morning and evening, and transit passengers stay airside in Terminal 2 the whole time.

• Connecting passengers pass a transit re-screening before the gates, and lighters are frequently confiscated there. Do not count on keeping your own flame — the smoking rooms have lighting facilities, and the lounge rooms are supervised.
• On a long 8–24 hour layover, the airside rooms remain the realistic option; exiting to smoke outdoors means clearing immigration and then re-entering through full security.
• The public room is free; the Plaza Premium Lounge (24 hours, Priority Pass or paid walk-in) is the easiest paid upgrade with its own smoking area if you want a quieter spot on an overnight transit.

Lounge Smoking Rooms in Terminal 2

• Plaza Premium Lounge — Level 2, immediately after passport control, open 24 hours. Entry via Priority Pass, DragonPass, selected cards or paid walk-in. The operator lists a smoking area among its amenities.
• Ethiopian Airlines Cloud Nine Lounge — opposite Gate A13 on the departure level, open 24 hours, for business-class and eligible Star Alliance passengers. It has a small designated smoking room.
• Sheba Silver Lounge (opened 2024) — in the Terminal 2 departure-hall corridor, for ShebaMiles Silver members, open roughly 5 a.m. to midnight, with a designated smoking room.
• Ethiopian Airlines’ lounge rules allow smoking only in these designated rooms and explicitly ban e-cigarettes even inside them.

Terminal 1 and Landside Smoking

Terminal 1 handles domestic and regional flights; no designated indoor smoking room is reliably reported there. Domestic travellers should smoke outdoors, landside, before security — outside the terminal entrances — and finish before check-in. The two terminals are linked landside by a free shuttle, so a landside cigarette between a domestic arrival and an international check-in at Terminal 2 is straightforward.

Vaping

IMPORTANT: e-cigarettes, vapes and heated-tobacco products are illegal nationwide in Ethiopia. Import, sale and use are all prohibited under the country’s 2019 food and medicine proclamation. Ethiopian Airlines’ lounge rules also explicitly ban e-cigarettes even inside the designated smoking areas. Do not bring vapes into Ethiopia.

Summary

For Ethiopia’s airport smoking rules and the vape ban, see our Ethiopia airport guide.

Useful Links

Ethiopian Airlines (Bole Airport lounges & services)