Yes, you can smoke at Teesside International Airport (MME) outside the front of the terminal building, on the landside forecourt before security. The terminal is smoke-free throughout under England’s smoke-free legislation, from check-in to the departure lounge, so the front-of-terminal area is where a cigarette fits into the journey.
The Designated Smoking Area
The smoking spot at Teesside is outside the front of the terminal, by the entrance doors. The main car park sits directly opposite the terminal building, which makes this one of the easier smoke breaks in the north of England: park, smoke on the way in, and you are at the check-in desks a minute later.
Teesside publishes no dedicated smoking page and no door numbers for the area, so treat the front of the terminal as your one option, stand clear of the doorway and follow the signage at the entrance. Drop-off and pick-up run from the same frontage, so a passenger being collected can smoke on the kerbside as they wait.
After Security
Smoking at Teesside is a landside affair — the departure lounge, the bars, the lounge and the gates are all smoke-free, and there is no terrace or shelter on the airside of the search area. Plan your last cigarette for the forecourt before you go through.
Teesside is small enough that the walk from the departure lounge back out to the entrance takes only a couple of minutes, and its single search area rarely queues at off-peak hours, so the round trip is possible with time in hand — our guide to smoking during layovers covers how to judge it. Once you are back outside, you clear security again from scratch.
For a northeast alternative where the smoke break survives the checkpoint, Newcastle — around 50 minutes north by road — keeps an outdoor smoking area after security in the departure lounge. On a KLM connection through Amsterdam, the smoking area at Schiphol is landside too, on Jan Dellaertplein between Doors D and E.
Terminal Layout and Airlines
Teesside runs a single terminal at Middleton St George, spread across the Darlington and Stockton-on-Tees boroughs about ten miles west of Middlesbrough. Landside you have check-in, the Landside Café, the SkyBar with its view over the airfield, Fairs-Lloyds Travel and the car-hire desks; airside, past the one security search area, the departure lounge holds World Duty Free, The Transporter Bar & Kitchen, The Goosepool, The Middleton, Teesside Boutique, a News | Essentials shop run by Linthorpe Pharmacy, and the Ramside Lounge for pre-booked lounge access.
KLM, Ryanair, Loganair and TUI are the main carriers, with KLM feeding multiple daily connections through Amsterdam Schiphol, Ryanair covering year-round Spain and the Mediterranean, Loganair flying UK and Ireland routes, TUI running weekly Majorca services and seasonal charters heading to Enontekiö for Lapland trips. The airport handled around 261,000 passengers in 2025, its highest annual total since 2009. It returned to public ownership in 2019, when the Tees Valley Combined Authority took a majority stake — the Teesside Airport Foundation holds the remaining quarter — and the old Durham Tees Valley Airport name was dropped for Teesside International Airport in July of that year.
Getting here, the nearest railway station is Darlington, a 12-minute drive with a taxi rank at the door; the hourly Stagecoach Service 6 runs between Stockton-on-Tees and Darlington via the airport, and the on-demand Tees Flex bus serves the terminal as well. All of those are non-smoking, so the front-of-terminal area is your first chance to light up on arrival.
Vaping and E-Cigarettes
Vape at the same outdoor area at the front of the terminal. E-cigarettes, pod systems and heat-not-burn devices are handled exactly like cigarettes at Teesside — keep them for the forecourt rather than the terminal, the departure lounge, the Ramside Lounge or the toilets. Since June 2025 disposable vapes can no longer be sold anywhere in the UK, so pack a refillable device rather than expecting to buy one at duty free.
Cabin crew on every airline flying from Teesside treat vaping on board the same way as smoking, so the forecourt area is also the last place to use a device before you land.
Summary
| Area | Smoking Allowed | Location Details |
|---|---|---|
| Front of the terminal building | Yes | Landside forecourt by the entrance doors, car park directly opposite |
| Inside the terminal | No | Smoke-free throughout, including check-in and toilets |
| After security / departure lounge | No | Smoke on the forecourt before you clear the search area |
| Ramside Lounge and airside bars | No | Smoke-free, in line with the rest of the terminal |
| Vaping | Outdoor area only | Same rules as cigarettes, including heat-not-burn devices |
For United Kingdom airport smoking rules, vaping rules, and other general info, see our United Kingdom smoking guide.