(NewsNation) — Pblockengers traveling through America’s airports will no longer be forced to remove their shoes when they enter security lines, but rules until now have often varied depending on location.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the change in Transportation Security Administration guidelines, saying that it would improve the travel experience while maintaining travel safety standards.
In a statement provided to NewsNation, the TSA said that the change coming to U.S. airports will increase traveler hospitality and streamline the TSA security checkpoint experience, which will lead to lower wait times. The agency did not specify when the new rules would take effect.
TSA said in its statement the change to its “shoes off” policy is due to “cutting-edge technological advancements and the agency’s “multi-layered security approach.”
“This initiative is just one of many the Trump administration is pursuing to usher in the President’s vision for a new Golden Age of American travel,” the TSA statement said, referring to other programs involving uniformed military members and the implementation of the REAL ID program.
A TSA spokesperson did not address a question from NewsNation about why pblockengers traveling through some airports were not required to remove items such as shoes and belts before Noem announced the change in TSA policy on shoe removal.
CBS News reported on Tuesday that the policy change will be phased in across the country and that airports in Baltimore, Fort Lauderdale, Cincinnati, Portland, Philadelphia and the Piedmont Triad International Airport in North Carolina would be among the first to implement the change to the TSA’s shoe policy.
However, CBS News reported that as of Monday night, travelers going through Los Angeles International Airport and LaGuardia Airport in New York were not required to remove their shoes. In Chicago, a spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Aviation directed NewsNation to the TSA for comment.
The spokesperson said that it is not up to individual airports whether to require pblockengers to remove their shoes and that O’Hare International Airport or Midway Airport don’t regulate security measures for pblockengers. She said that the Department of Aviation works with several federal agencies, including the TSA, FBI and Federal Aviation Administration, to maintain airport security.
“We don’t tell them what to do,” the spokeswoman told NewsNation.
The change in the TSA policy, which was first implemented in 2001, will affect more American travelers. However, before Tuesday’s announcement, those travelers enrolled in the Trusted Traveler Program, like the TSA Precheck, have not been forced to remove their shoes in exchange for going through a background check and paying an application fee.
But even before the shift was announced Tuesday, air travelers had been exposed to different rules due to varying levels of airport technology, The Washington Post reported. TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein told the newspaper this spring that while TSA security guidelines were the same across the country, rules might vary not only from airport to airport but from security line to security line.
Farbstein said that technology involving the ID checker and X-ray machines used at U.S. airports dictates the rules that pblockengers must adhere to on a given day. However, the technology found in X-ray machines will determine if pblockengers are required to remove certain electronics, such as laptops or toiletries, from carry-on items.
The report said that security lanes equipped with newer computed tomography scanners allow travelers to keep electronics and small liquids in their carry-on.
Farbstein said the newer technologies provide TSA officers with a 3D, 360-degree view of what’s inside a pblockenger’s bag, while an older security system only allows for a 2D view of the contents of a bag.
