For the first time in al­most 20 years, trav­ellers may no longer be re­quired to take off their shoes dur­ing se­cu­ri­ty screen­ings at U.S. air­ports.

The Trans­porta­tion Se­cu­ri­ty Ad­min­is­tra­tion is look­ing to aban­don the ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty step that has for years be­dev­illed any­one pass­ing through U.S air­ports, ac­cord­ing to me­dia re­ports.

If im­ple­ment­ed, it would put an end to a se­cu­ri­ty screen­ing man­date put in place al­most 20 years ago, sev­er­al years af­ter “shoe bomber” Richard Reid’s failed at­tempt to take down a flight from Paris to Mi­a­mi in late 2001.

The trav­el newslet­ter Gate Ac­cess was first to re­port that the se­cu­ri­ty screen­ing change is com­ing. ABC News re­port­ed on an in­ter­nal memo sent to TSA of­fi­cers last week that states the new pol­i­cy al­lows trav­ellers keep their shoes on dur­ing stan­dard screen­ings at U.S. air­ports, be­gin­ning this Sun­day.

The plan is for the change to oc­cur at all U.S. air­ports soon, the memo said.

Trav­el­ers have been able to skirt the ex­tra se­cu­ri­ty re­quire­ment if they par­tic­i­pate in the TSA PreCheck pro­gram, which costs around $80 for five years. The pro­gram al­lows air­line pas­sen­gers to get through the screen­ing process with­out re­mov­ing shoes, belts or light jack­ets.

Trav­el­ers who are 75 years old or old­er and those 12 or younger do not have to re­move shoes at se­cu­ri­ty check­points.

The TSA has not of­fi­cial­ly con­firmed the re­port­ed se­cu­ri­ty screen­ing change yet.

“TSA and DHS are al­ways ex­plor­ing new and in­no­v­a­tive ways to en­hance pas­sen­ger ex­pe­ri­ence and our strong se­cu­ri­ty pos­ture,” a TSA spokesper­son said in a state­ment Tues­day. “Any po­ten­tial up­dates to our se­cu­ri­ty process will be is­sued through of­fi­cial chan­nels.”

The TSA be­gan in 2001 when Pres­i­dent George W. Bush signed leg­is­la­tion for its cre­ation two months af­ter the 9/11 at­tacks. The agency in­clud­ed fed­er­al air­port screen­ers that re­placed the pri­vate com­pa­nies that air­lines had used to han­dle se­cu­ri­ty.

Over the years the TSA has con­tin­ued to look for ways to en­hance its se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures, in­clud­ing test­ing fa­cial recog­ni­tion tech­nol­o­gy and im­ple­ment­ing Re­al ID re­quire­ments.

One of the most promi­nent fric­tion points for trav­el­ers is the TSA at screen­ing check­points. Trump’s Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Sean Duffy asked the pub­lic in an April so­cial me­dia post what would make trav­el more seam­less.

The fol­low­ing day, Duffy post­ed on X that, “It’s very clear that TSA is the #1 trav­el com­plaint. That falls un­der the De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty. I’ll dis­cuss this with @Sec_Noem,” Duffy wrote in a post on X the fol­low­ing day.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Sec­re­tary Kristi Noem will host a press con­fer­ence Tues­day evening at Ronald Rea­gan Wash­ing­ton Na­tion­al Air­port to an­nounce a new TSA pol­i­cy “that will make screen­ing eas­i­er for pas­sen­gers, im­prove trav­el­er sat­is­fac­tion, and re­duce wait times,” her agency said.

Trump fired TSA Ad­min­is­tra­tor David Pekoske in Jan­u­ary in the mid­dle of a sec­ond five-year term, though he was ap­point­ed by Trump dur­ing his first term in the White House. Pekoske was reap­point­ed by Pres­i­dent Joe Biden.

No rea­son was giv­en for Pekoske’s de­par­ture. The ad­min­is­tra­tor po­si­tion re­mains va­cant, ac­cord­ing to the TSA web­site. —(AP)

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Sto­ry by MICHELLE CHAP­MAN | As­so­ci­at­ed Press