After almost 20 years of making flyers shuffle through the Transportation Security Administration line in their socks or bare feet, travelers at all airports in the United States no longer have to remove their shoes when going through security, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced this week.

Portland International Jetport implemented the change to the security procedure Thursday, Director Paul Bradbury confirmed.

Airports across the U.S. now have the technology required to end the “Shoes-Off” policy, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a news conference Tuesday.

Here’s what you need to know next time you head for the airport.

When will shoe removal no longer be required?

All U.S. airports should immediately remove the shoe removal requirement, Noem said.

The change came as a shock and delight to many travelers making their way to the security checkpoint at Portland International Jetport on Thursday. Most airports didn’t offer chairs for passengers to sit in while taking off their shoes, which often complicated the process for older individuals or people with mobility issues.

Debbie Upchurch, of Nashville, Tennessee, said Thursday while flying out of the jetport that she used to forget that she would have to take her shoes off when going through security.

“I just remembered wishing I always had socks on,” she said.

That changed when Upchurch joined the TSA’s PreCheck program, which already allowed travelers to pass through security without removing their shoes.

Some travelers may still have to remove their shoes if they face additional security screening, Noem said.

Do I still have to take out liquids and laptops?

Yes, liquids and laptops still have to be removed from bags while going through regular security checkpoints, unless a traveler has TSA PreCheck. Travelers must keep liquids in 3.4-ounce containers or smaller to fit in a quart-sized bag to go through security; anything larger must go in a checked bag.

Julia Keough — who was flying home from Maine to Austin, Texas, with her husband, Brian, and their two children on Thursday — finds the liquid and laptop policies annoying. She hopes to see them removed, too, if the technology allows for it.

“Defer to the experts, and just hope that the restrictions that exist are still needed,” she said.

How will this affect TSA PreCheck?

The TSA PreCheck program will not be affected by this policy change — though those preapproved flyers now have one less benefit compared to the general public.

Travelers who have PreCheck could already go through security without removing their shoes, belts and light jackets or taking their laptops and liquids out of their bags.

PreCheck costs up to $85 for five years. TSA has promoted the program as a way to avoid longer security lines, saying that PreCheck travelers — who get to go through their own line at checkpoints — typically wait 10 minutes or less.

As PreCheck has grown in popularity, though, those lines have gotten longer, Brian Keough said. Now, with the shoe policy change, he said the perks seem less beneficial than before.

Still, with two young children, airport security is always stressful for the Keoughs, and PreCheck has made it easier for them.

“You’re through security, and you can kind of breathe easier,” Brian Keough said.

Why change this policy now?

Noem said Tuesday that DHS, which oversees the TSA, is examining all screening processes and found that the “Shoes-Off” policy was no longer necessary with current technology.

Brian Keough believed the change was bound to happen eventually and is happy to see that it finally did.

“It seems like the technology has hopefully caught up to being able to sense that stuff,” he said.

This week’s change comes in the wake of other changes to airport security, including a new requirement that travelers have a Real ID or other federal identification for domestic flights. Noem said that change has had a compliance rate of more than 94% since it went into place in May.

On July 2, TSA also announced a “Serve with Honor, Travel with Ease” policy that would provide a PreCheck discount and access to faster lanes to uniformed service members and their families.

Why was there a ‘Shoes-Off’ policy in the first place?

TSA implemented the “Shoes-Off” policy in 2006, five years after Richard Reid boarded a Paris-to-Miami flight with explosives in his shoes and attempted to detonate them in an effort to take down the plane.

Reid, who had connections to the terrorist group al-Qaida and became known as the “shoe bomber,” was sentenced to life in prison in 2003 and fined $2 million.

Zoe Vidmar, of New York, said Thursday at the jetport that she agrees with the end of the “Shoes-Off” policy because it seems “pointless,” but she understands why it was there in the first place.

“It would probably be best to take them off, just because extra security never hurt anybody,” Vidmar said.

This report contains material from The Associated Press.