Have you ever dreaded taking your shoes off as a security requirement at the airport? Well, that pesky pre-flight requirement will no longer be enforced by the Transportation Security Administration, per multiple reports.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt seemingly confirmed the regulation change on Tuesday morning. Leavitt referred to the reported procedural removal as “really big news” from the Department of Homeland Security in a post on X.
The new policy of allowing passengers to keep their footwear on when going through security checkpoints is beginning to be phased in at select airports and could expand nationwide soon, as reported by NBC News.
Travelers were mandated by the TSA to remove their shoes before clearing security checkpoints in 2006 due to elevated concerns of explosives being brought onto planes.
The rule was directly influenced by a 2001 incident in which Richard Reid, a British man later known as the “shoe bomber,” attempted to blow up an American Airlines plane traveling from Paris, France, to Miami, Fla., with explosives tucked into his shoe. This also occurred at a time when security measures were heightened in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.
Officials at the Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport and the Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport, Mississippi’s largest airports, have not formally announced whether or not they have ditched the shoe policy at this time.
