Palm Springs International Airport (PSP) is smoke-free across its entire open-air campus — since the 2024 city ordinance the ban covers even its famous open-air spaces. PSP is built around roofless walkways and an outdoor courtyard open to the desert air between the Sonny Bono and Agua Caliente concourses, and the whole open-air terminal is included, so the nearest place to light up is off the airport campus.
How Palm Springs Airport Is Laid Out
PSP is one of the few US airports that is genuinely open-air. After security you walk out of the main building through automatic doors into an open-air central courtyard with dining, a wine bar, coffee stands and a children’s play area, then on to the gates along roofless, open-sided walkways. Flights leave from two concourses: the elevated Sonny Bono Concourse (gates 4–11), used by larger narrowbody jets, and the tarmac-level Agua Caliente Concourse, also called the Regional Concourse (gates 12–20), where smaller aircraft board by ramp. PSP is pursuing a multi-billion-dollar master plan that would roughly double its gates over the coming decade; the smoke-free rule applies across the whole site in the meantime, and to every part of it.
The 2024 Smoking Ban
In September 2024 the Palm Springs City Council voted to extend the city’s smoking ban to cover all areas of the airport, which is the policy that governs PSP today (the airport falls under the city’s smoking ordinance, Municipal Code Chapter 6.10). Because the terminal is open to the air, the whole campus is treated as smoke-free — the indoor areas, the open-air courtyard past security, the roofless walkways and the curbside frontage — rather than carving out a curbside smoking area the way most US airports do. Smoking, vaping and e-cigarettes are all prohibited throughout.
Where You Can Smoke
The nearest place to smoke is off airport property: leave the terminal area entirely and step away from the building, past the campus boundary. If you have already cleared security, that means exiting, smoking, then walking back and re-clearing the TSA checkpoint before your flight. Allow real extra time — this is a longer round trip than the quick curbside step you would get at most airports, since the airside, the courtyard and the curbside are all covered by the ban.
E-Cigarettes and Vaping
The city’s smoking ordinance covers electronic smoking devices as well, so vaping is banned on the same terms as cigarettes — nowhere inside the terminal, the courtyard or the curbside. Vapers are in exactly the same position as smokers and have to leave the airport campus.
Summary
| Area | Smoking | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal building | No | Smoke-free indoors |
| Open-air courtyard / walkways | No | Banned since the 2024 city ordinance, despite the open-air design |
| Curbside frontage | No | Part of the airport-wide smoke-free campus |
| Off airport property | Yes | The only place left to smoke; leave the campus and re-clear security |
For USA airport smoking rules, state vape rules, lighter rules at TSA, and other federal/state info, see our USA smoking guide.