The US ends the requirement to remove shoes at airports.

The hassle of removing shoes at the airport is over. At least in the United States, where authorities have decided to eliminate a security measure that has been in place for almost two decades, according to leaks to the press by the Donald Trump administration.

Passengers will be able to leave their shoes behind when going through security at some airports in the world's leading power, in a measure that will be presented this Tuesday evening in Spain. The plan is to later expand it to the rest of the country's airports.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is expected to unveil the measure at a press conference at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Noem's department oversees the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), which is responsible for, among other things, airport screening.

In a statement prior to the press conference, the TSA said it would implement new regulations " to make passenger screening easier , improve traveler satisfaction, and reduce wait times."

Younger children won't remember what it was like to go through airport security without removing their shoes. It was a requirement that was imposed in 2006, when the TSA deemed it necessary due to the "continuing threat" of camouflaged explosives.

These were the years following the September 11 attacks, in which Islamist terrorists hijacked and crashed planes into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington. And at a time when these attacks, the US response to them—the so-called "War on Terror" and the subsequent invasion of Iraq—unleashed a growing threat of domestic terrorist attacks that changed security protocols.

The specific trigger for the security measure came after a man tried to detonate his shoe bombs on a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001 , a few months after the Islamist attacks.

Today's measure follows the elimination of the ban on carrying liquids in luggage, which some countries, including the U.S., have already begun to implement.