TSA will no longer require all passengers to take shoes off at airport security checkpoint

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Participants in the Trusted Traveler Program TSA PreCheck have long been able to avoid removing shoes, however they must submit to a background check and pay an application fee.

After nearly two decades, passengers going through airport security in the United States will no longer have to take their shoes off. In December 2001, Richard Reid, who became known as the “shoe bomber,” tried to use matches to ignite explosives hidden in his shoes on a flight from Paris to Miami.

The Transportation Security Administration will be phasing out the security requirement, a government source familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN on the condition of anonymity.

Passengers flying out of Hancock International Airport in Syracuse, New York, did not have to take off their shoes on Monday, CNN affiliate WSTM reported. However, on Tuesday morning at Chicago O’Hare, CNN affiliate WLS saw passengers still being asked to remove footwear.

The requirement for passengers to take their shoes off at TSA security checkpoints came nearly five years later due to “intelligence pointing to a continuing threat,” an official TSA history notes, following a foiled August 2006 terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives onboard transatlantic flights.

The TSA then introduced its 3-1-1 liquids rule for carry-on luggage in response.

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