Flipping a nearly 20-year-old requirement, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced a new change to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) rules at a news conference. On Tuesday, while at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport, she revealed that travellers at US airports will no longer have to take off their shoes during security checks.

The major switch comes nearly two decades after the protocol was instated in 2006. The security mandate was pushed out several years after “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid’s attempt to take down an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001 with hidden explosives in his shoes was averted.

Now while the Al-Qaeda member serves a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Colorado after having pleaded guilty to terrorism and other charges, Kristi Noem has beckoned the arrival of President Donald Trump’s vision of “a new Golden Age of American travel.”

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During the Washington conference, the DHS secretary highlighted that America’s security technology has dramatically changed over the past 20 years — all while the mandate was still in place.

“It’s evolved. TSA has changed. We have a multi-layered whole of government approach now to security,” she asserted. “We are very confident that we can continue to provide hospitality to folks and for American travelers and for those visiting our country, while maintaining the same standard of security for passengers and for our homeland.”

US airports’ ‘Shoes-Off’ policy comes to an end

“Ending the ‘Shoes-Off’ policy is the latest effort DHS is implementing to modernise and enhance traveler experience across our nation’s airports,” the Trump-appointed official wrote in an X post. “We expect this change will drastically decrease passenger wait times at our TSA checkpoints, leading to a more pleasant and efficient passenger experience.”

Reiterating that security remains their top priority, DHS and TSA hope to implement the brand-new change by tapping into their “cutting-edge technological advancements and multi-layered security approach,” while maintaining “the highest security standards.”

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As the two-decade mandate for passengers to remove their shoes during airport screening runs out of fuel, the US Transportation Security Administration asserted that other TSA checkpoint non-negotiables had not been lifted.

“Other aspects of TSA’s layered security approach will still apply during the TSA checkpoint process. For example, passengers subject must still clear identity verification, Secure Flight vetting, and other processes,” the US authorities said in a statement.

The TSA took off the ground in 2001 when George W Bush was still the US president. At the time, the then-commander-in-chief pushed for the administration’s creation just months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.