It’s a victory for old soles.
Travelers over the age of 75 can keep their shoes on while passing through airport security, the Transportation Security Administration ruled.
The new regulations, which go into effect on Monday, also will “reduce” pat-downs of senior citizens.
The changes are being rolled out at Chicago’s O’Hare, Denver, Orlando and Portland, Ore., airports.
“These changes will allow officers to better focus their efforts on passengers who may be more likely to pose a risk to transportation, while expediting the screening process,” says Joseph Terrell, TSA’s security director in Orlando.
Lenore Zimmerman, an 85-year-old Long Island woman told the Daily News Friday that in late November, security screeners took her into a private room and took off all her clothes after she requested a pat-down instead of going through a screening device.
She said she’d been concerned the advanced image technology screening equipment would interfere with her defibrillator.
“I walk with a walker — I really look like a terrorist,” she said sarcastically. “I’m tiny. I weigh 110 pounds, 107 without clothes, and I was strip-searched.”
That same month, another elderly woman was outraged when she was told she had to remove her underwear to confirm she had a colostomy bag.
In January, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Betsy Markey admitted the TSA had messed up.
“It is not standard operating procedure for colostomy devices to be visually inspected, and [the Transportation Security Administration\\] apologizes for this employee’s action,” Markey wrote in a statement.
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