Wearing Booties Through Airport Security Checkpoint?
 

Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I'm a serious clean freak. I FREAK OUT when people wear shoes exposed to the outside world in my house...what if they stepped on poop in March 2009!??!! That's still gotta be on their shoe, doesn't it?! I don't want it in my house!

Anyways, yeah, I'm THAT bad. I am meticulously organized & I clean my living quarters all the time & I want things to stay clean. The best way to prevent having to clean a lot is to have things be clean in the first place.

Well, needless to say, the "take your shoes off in the security line" bit of theatre REALLY gets to me. The TSOs keep walking around in shoes! What if they have poop on the bottom of their shoes or something? Or worse...

On my last few flights, I've tended to wear socks that were on their last legs through security & then I just threw them out in the garbage before putting on clean socks I kept in my carry-on. Other times, I just put the contaminated socks in a plastic bag in my carry-on where I kept clean socks: I just switched them out & washed them on arrival to my destination.

Recently, however, I've wondered: what if I buy those construction worker or medical booties you can buy at Home Depot? That way, I won't have to contaminate my socks with who knows what's on the ground by the security line. Would TSA allow me to go through wearing booties? Have others done this?

Just wondering. Thanks in advance!

I can't think of a reason why-not, I would though hand them to a security person first (for inspection) and express your reasons (maybe not the poop on their shoes !) but that you have a "clean phobia", OCD.

Hard to tell you what to expect.

PHX used to actually give out booties and drawstring 3-1-1 baggies at their checkpoints. (The baggies had 'Courtesy of Phoenix TSA' printed right on them, but they were not allowed at ORD because they weren't 'resealable' - they had a drawstring instead of a ziploc!).

I took extra booties, like you, I don't want to put dirty feet back into my otherwise clean shoes. Generally not a problem, but at SEA I was told I had to stop immediately past the scanner, remove the booties, and put them in a trash can - before I could get my shoes and bag from the xray belt!

BTW, PHX no longer has the booties or baggies.

I finally gave up. Like you, I just stop before the checkpoint, put my 'flying' socks on over my bare or stockinged feet, clear the checkpoint, remove the socks and put my shoes back on. I have never been challenged (they'll get some serious pushback if they ever start telling people to take off their shoes AND socks!), so I just play it safe.

If you do decide to try the bootie thing, please be sure to post your experiences back here so we can all benefit.

Saw someone do this @ ABQ just this week...since they don't provide the booties, I'm assuming he brought his own.

It is pretty common to see people do this. I have never noticed it causing a problem. YMMV of course.

Do you still have to stand on one leg or hobble on the filthy floor to change from shoes to booties?

Yes, you can wear them, remove your shoes and put them on as the last thing you do...that is put your shoes in the xray last and put on the booties right infront of the WTMD TSO; "should not" be a issue.

Now if I did that, the barker would say, "sir, sir, SIR!!!! Remove all shoes!!!!" But these are booties to protect my feet from the dirty floor. "Sir, sir, please remove all shoes, it's policy." "Sir, you're interfering with the screening process."

just curious...what is the "or worse" part ?

I always use shower caps from hotels on my feet. I have never had a problem....as they can see my feet. I have actually had TSA tell me what a great idea it was.

DFW almost always has plenty of booties free for the taking at all security checkpoints. Stock up there for future trips out of other airports. I always do.

I buy them by the 100 pack from Amazon.com. I'm on my third pack now and have never had a problem. One time a TSA'er patted down my feet, but that's the extent of it.

Why buy them? Grab multiple pairs when you can.

As a previous poster suggested, don't throw them away. Just leave them on the floor and make a clerk pick them up and throw them away.

They're very inexpensive, and I fly a lot so I like to always have several pairs at the ready.

Perhaps I'm being too polite, but I usually clean up my messes. Although once at BUF a nasty screener ordered me to pick them up (which I would have, had she not barked at me). I said, "Do it yourself" and left them on the floor at the checkpoint.

Was at Narita last month. Traveler in front of me had to take her shoes off - they gave her booties to wear through metal detector.

I went through with shoes and belt on. Only thing they asked I remove was laptop and iPad.

The TSA could learn a lot from their colleagues in nations like Japan and Korea.

No liquid search at gate as I've experienced in past, but was not on a US carrier.

OTOH, I've had it with the cancer boxes at SJC.

SDF