US airports will no longer require passengers to remove their shoes during security screenings run by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) – kicking out the unpopular policy after two decades.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the change was in effect immediately for airports across the US, though a “multi-layered” screening process would remain in place.
Passengers must still remove belts and coats and take laptops and liquids out of bags, but those rules are also under review, Noem said.
The requirement for airline passengers to take off shoes for screenings had been in effect nationwide since 2006 after a British man hid a bomb in one of his shoes on a flight to Miami.
Noem told a news conference on Tuesday: “Our security technology has changed dramatically. It’s evolved. TSA has changed.
“We have a multi-layered, whole-of-government approach now to security and to the environment that people anticipate and experience when they come into an airport that has been honed and it’s been hardened.”
The homeland security secretary added: “It’s important we find ways to keep people safe, but also streamline and make the process much more enjoyable for every single person.”
0:52Watch: US airports no longer require taking off shoes at security
Before Noem made the announcement official on Tuesday evening, some airports – including Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Philadelphia International Airport and Piedmont Triad International Airport in North Carolina – had already started implementing the new policy.
Previously, children and travellers did not have to remove their footwear if they qualified for TSA PreCheck, a fast-track screening that requires an application process, for which fingerprints must be submitted.
Airlines for America, a trade group which represents the major air carriers in the US, released a statement backing the DHS effort.
“This policy change will go a long way in facilitating smooth, seamless and secure travel for passengers and is welcome news to the millions of people who fly every day,” Nicholas E Calio, president and CEO, said in a statement.
The shoe removal rule was adopted after Richard Reid, a British man who became known as the “shoe bomber”, was discovered to have explosives hidden in his footwear on a December 2001 flight from Paris to Miami.
Reid failed to detonate the explosives. He was subdued by passengers, and the plane landed safely in Boston.
The shoe removal policy also followed the 11 September, 2001 terror attacks in the US when more than a dozen al-Qaeda terrorists armed with boxcutters and knives hijacked four commercial planes.