Good news, Wisconsin flyers, your airport security experience will be getting better.
Say goodbye to awkwardly balancing on one foot as you put your shoes back on after going through the scanner. And to having to walk around the dirty airport floor covered in who-knows-what in just socks — or worse yet, barefoot.
Instead, look forward to a new life in which shoes stay on and feet are protected.
That’s because the Transportation Security Administration’s new regulations, which will no longer require passengers to remove their shoes during regular security checks, made their way to every Wisconsin airport on Monday, July 7, Frank Pipia, director of public affairs for TSA in Wisconsin, confirmed.
Sue and Bob Maurer, both in their late-70s, haven’t had to take off their shoes to fly in a few years. Passengers ages 75 and older were allowed to keep their shoes on. Still, the news all passengers, regardless of age, now get to keep their shoes on is welcome news to the couple.
“They’ve been able to detect things for quite a while, but they’ve still continued to make people take their shoes off,” Sue Maurer said minutes before getting into the TSA line at Mitchell International in Milwaukee for her flight home to Arizona. “I think that we all are happy not to have more inconvenience than necessary.”
Another traveler, Rick Rahn, 83, hadn’t heard about the news but echoed the same sentiments as the Maurers. He said going through security is already stressful enough, and having one less thing to worry about will be nice.
“Your wallet, your belt, your electronics, your carry on,” said Rahn, who once forgot his outdoor vest at security. “It’s easy to forget something, especially as you get a little older.”
Wei Bing, a 44-year-old from Austin, Texas, who was in Milwaukee for the recent fencing showcase at the Baird Center, said he travels periodically to-and-from the Bay Area and thinks not having to change in and out of shoes will help speed up the security process.
“It’s going to save a lot of troubles,” Bing said.
The TSA made the nationwide shoes-off requirement in 2006 — though people with TSAPreCheck haven’t had to — several years after the “shoe bomber” Richard Reid unsuccessfully attempted to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoe in December 2001.
It was two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks the TSA was created to help prevent similar attacks from taking place. Since then, the organization has implemented dozens of security measures, like the shoes-off policy, to airports across the country.
The latest TSA security change came in May 2025, and required all passengers to have a Real ID-compliant driver’s license or other acceptable identification (like a U.S. passport) in order to fly domestically.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin flyers will no longer have to remove their shoes at airport security
Reporting by Jack Albright, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
