We can keep our shoes on at airport security but TSA must remain vigilant

Airline travelers celebrated last week when the Transportation Security Administration announced it had rescinded the well-intentioned yet gag-reflex-inducing requirement making people remove their shoes during airport security checks before boarding a flight.

The nation’s podophobia eased. Germophobes, already on high alert at airports, can relax a little.

Air travelers won’t have to nervously fret about putting their misshapen piggies on public display. We don’t have to worry about catching athlete’s foot or seeing foot fungus, bunions, ingrown toenails, gout, plantar warts, fallen arches, calluses and so much more that should remain in a podiatrist’s office. You can wear shoes with laces again!  

Remember that sinking feeling of not knowing if you put on clean socks, or any socks? Now you’ll just have to scramble to triple-check that you brought your REAL ID.

And the shelved footwear policy will help those on a shoestring budget. For the well-heeled traveler, TSA offered an upgrade to keep your shoes on through security clearance and 20 million people subscribed. A background check was required — for a $80 fee — to skip the inconveniences of standing shoeless in lines before entering the body scanner. 

As many as a billion people travel yearly by plane in the U.S. That’s a lot of shoes to scan, and a lot of stinky feet. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes: Would you want to be a TSA agent scanning endless lines of shoes day after day? Technology has now advanced to be able to rule out shoes being used for anything other than concealing our barking dogs.

The shoe removal mandate might seem silly to those who forgot the very real fear of explosives being smuggled onto planes in shoes. A terrorist named Richard Reid tried to detonate a bomb in his shoes on a flight from Paris to Miami three months after 9/11. Loyal to al-Qaida, his scheme to blow up the aircraft ended when a flight attendant saw him fiddling with a wire connected to 10 ounces of explosives, enough to blow up the plane. The threat was real even though it took four years to put the shoe removal plan in place. And the fear of copycats might have lasted longer than was warranted.   

In announcing the shoe shuffle, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said last week: "We want to improve this travel experience, but while maintaining safety standards and making sure that we are keeping people safe." 

We don’t mean to make light of the very serious topic of airline safety.  TSA must remain vigilant of evolving threats.  And whatever security policies TSA puts in place, we are willing to oblige — despite inconveniences — to keep airline travel safe.

Until then, we’ll be waiting for the other shoe to drop on updated security procedures.