Airline passengers can keep their shoes on at security

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- Good news for harried travellers who resent having to remove their shoes at airport-security checkpoints: now you can just say no.

Canada's airport security agency has issued a bulletin to front-line officers instructing them they cannot require domestic or international passengers to doff footwear before walking through metal detectors.

"Never suggest, ask or demand that passengers remove footwear prior to entering the WTMD (walk-through metal detector)," says the one-page directive, issued in April.

"This bulletin is effective immediately."

In a major exception, however, officers can still order passengers heading for the United States to remove their shoes, consistent with higher air-security standards set by Washington.

As well, if a hand-held metal detector signals an alarm for shoes after the walk-through, a passenger can be required to remove footwear for examination.

And "if a passenger offers to remove footwear, allow them to do so," adds the directive.

The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, or CATSA, says the new bulletin will be written into the next edition of its operating manual.

The document was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

Typically, shoes that passengers have been required to remove are sent through hand-baggage X-ray machines for closer inspection.

Footwear came under greater scrutiny by airport security officers around the world after British citizen Richard Reid was arrested in late 2001 for a failed attempt to bomb an American Airlines flight to Miami by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes.

A flight attendant managed to thwart Reid as he tried to hold a match to a fuse sticking out of the heel of one shoe.

The April shoe directive for Canadian screeners appears at odds with a "notice to passengers," currently posted on the CATSA website, that says "all passengers boarding any flights may also be requested to remove footwear for additional screening."

A spokesman for the authority said the spring bulletin is nothing new.

"It's a reminder to screening officers about the existing policy," Mathieu Larocque said in an interview.

"The purpose of the bulletin was simply to reinforce an existing policy. Nothing has changed. ... We're striving for consistency."

Larocque, who said the bulletin was not prompted by passenger complaints, declined to provide the relevant amendments of the screening manual, saying it is a secret document.

And he did not clarify why the bulletin indicated the shoe directive was "effective immediately" if it had already been CATSA policy.

The agency does not keep detailed enough records of complaints to indicate whether show-removal is an issue for travellers, Larocque said.

Tougher rules for shoe-screening that followed the Reid arrest have prompted a raft of passenger complaints around the world. Numerous blogs and travel websites allege that foot diseases are being spread and that security checkpoints are needlessly clogged by people struggling with shoelaces.

Several footwear manufacturers have also promoted "airport friendly" shoes containing little or no metal that might otherwise trigger alarms on metal detectors.

CATSA is a federal agency created in 2002 in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. On Jan. 1, 2003, the organization took over sole responsibility for air-passenger screening, which had previously been handled by the airlines.

The agency contracts out airport screening to private companies, while ensuring security and service standards are consistent across Canada.