Yes, you can smoke at Westchester County Airport (HPN) outdoors, along the terminal curb and over by the parking garage, well clear of the entrance doors. The terminal building is smoke-free from the check-in hall through to the boarding lounge, so a departing smoker steps outside first and clears the TSA checkpoint afterwards. HPN is one of the smallest commercial terminals serving the New York area, which makes that round trip quicker here than at any of the big city airports.
How Westchester County Airport Is Laid Out
HPN has a single main terminal — a three-level building of about 96,000 square feet with roughly 700 feet of frontage, owned by Westchester County and managed on its behalf by AvPorts. The airport sits in Harrison, North Castle and Rye Brook, around five miles east of White Plains and about 30 miles north of Manhattan, and it has been in public use since 1945.
The scale of the place is fixed by an unusual agreement. Westchester County and the airlines operate under a Terminal Capacity Agreement that limits terminal use to 240 scheduled passengers per half hour across four available gate positions, with the cap lifted a little over peak holiday periods. That is why the whole passenger side of HPN is one compact building with one boarding lounge rather than a set of concourses. Five scheduled carriers use it — American, BermudAir, Breeze Airways, Delta and jetBlue. The FAA recorded 1,182,384 passenger boardings at HPN in calendar year 2024, ranking it 97th among US commercial-service airports.
The terminal stays open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Check-in, the security checkpoint, the arrivals hall and baggage claim all sit within a few minutes’ walk of one another, an ATM sits on the second floor by the escalator, and free Wi-Fi covers the main terminal. Food and drink come from merchant kiosks, a coffee shop, a bar and a full-service restaurant overlooking the airfield, and the airport is explicit that not all of those services are available in the boarding lounge beyond the checkpoint. The county selected HNTB in March 2026 to design a modernization of the terminal within its existing footprint; the 240-passenger-per-half-hour limit stays in place throughout.
Where to Smoke Outside the Terminal
Smoking at HPN is an outdoor activity, and the ground outside the terminal is where it happens. The terminal interior is smoke-free under New York’s Clean Indoor Air Act, so the moment you want a cigarette you are heading for the doors.
The practical spots are the stretch of curb away from the entrances on the terminal frontage, and the open ground around the enclosed parking garage across from the building. Walk past the covered part of the frontage before you light up — Westchester County’s health department advises smokers to stay out from under overhangs that trap smoke — and keep out of the way of the taxi and pick-up traffic, which bunches tightly at a terminal this size.
Two limits are worth knowing. The county’s airport rules prohibit smoking, lighted cigars, cigarettes, pipes, matches or any open flame on the public landing area, ramps, aprons and aircraft parking areas, on any deck or balcony overlooking them, within 50 feet of a stationary fuel truck, and anywhere signed to that effect. And no outdoor spot at HPN is sheltered, so a January wait on the curb is a cold one — Westchester winters run below freezing and the summer humidity is heavy.
After Security
Every place you can smoke at HPN is before the TSA checkpoint. The boarding lounge is a single shared space serving all four gate positions, and there is no smoking room, no terrace and no reachable outdoor deck inside it. To smoke once you are airside you have to leave the secure area entirely, step outside, and screen back in.
The saving grace is the size of the building. The walk from any gate to the curb is two or three minutes, and the queue at the checkpoint is the only real variable — budget 25 to 35 minutes for the whole round trip and you will be back at the gate comfortably. Because the pre-security side holds the bar and the full-service restaurant, it is worth eating, drinking and smoking landside first, then committing to security once.
Connecting through New York on a longer itinerary? Our guide to smoking during layovers covers how to judge whether a connection leaves you room to get outside and back, and the John F. Kennedy International Airport page and the LaGuardia Airport page set out the outdoor arrangements at the two city airports down the road.
E-Cigarettes and Vaping
Vaping and e-cigarettes follow the same rules as cigarettes at HPN: outdoors, clear of the terminal entrances, never inside the building or in the boarding lounge. TSA allows vape devices and spare lithium batteries in carry-on baggage only — they cannot go in a checked bag — and using one on board an aircraft is prohibited by federal rule.
Summary
| Area | Smoking | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal interior | No | Smoke-free from check-in to the gates |
| Boarding lounge (all four gates) | No | No smoking room; exit and re-clear security |
| Restaurant and bar | No | All indoor areas smoke-free |
| Terminal curb | Yes | Clear of the entrance doors and past the covered frontage |
| Parking garage area | Yes | Open ground across from the terminal |
| Ramps and aprons | No | Prohibited by the county’s airport rules |
| Vaping / e-cigarettes | Outdoor only | Same rules as cigarettes |
For USA airport smoking rules, state vape rules, lighter rules at TSA, and other federal/state info, see our USA smoking guide.