Andrew Alderson: These shoe checks are stink

The shoes Richard Reid used to carry an "improvised explosive" aboard a Paris-to-Miami-bound American Airlines Flight 63 in 2001. Photo / AP

Andrew Alderson socks it to an attempted martyr.

Dear Abdul Raheem (formerly Richard Reid). Every time I arrive at an American airport, I begrudgingly acknowledge your influence over the travelling world - the impact you have on our travel arrangements is impressive, given that you're locked in solitary confinement 23 hours a day at Colorado's Florence Supermax prison.

Your failed effort at terrorism, the failure to ignite bombs in your bespoke sneakers on behalf of Al Qaeda, means that, irrespective of weather, I wear sandals in anticipation of removing my footwear for security checks. This sometimes gives me chilly tootsies, but they're not as cold, I'm presuming, as your desert pad at 3am.

I pity recent purchasers of leather boots who forget to pop a shoehorn in their carry-on baggage. Likewise, my sympathy extends to those who eased into a holey pair of socks, forgetting their hosiery would soon be under scrutiny. I pity all of us for having to embark upon the toe-jam waltz, as we stroll through the gauntlet of bacteria to collect our belongings.

You have touched each of us travellers in some way, Shoe Bomber.

Officials in the Obama administration have intimated an end to this awkward farce could be nigh, and experts tease us by suggesting shoe-bomb detection technology is in the offing. There have been no publicised attempts to emulate you, yet still we loosen our laces or slip off our loafers.

I suppose this is a piddly price to pay. Your shoes' failure to detonate meant 197 people were spared death on board American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami on December 22, 2001.

Fortunately, rain on the way to the airport dampened your fuses, before the 283g of explosive could blow a hole in the fuselage. Damn those weather gods ... or Allahs.

Testimony suggests the smell of smoke pervaded the cabin after a meal and passengers saw you hunched over your soles. Presumably you're hunched over your soul now. Was it demeaning to be bound in plastic handcuffs, seatbelt extensions and headphone cords before an onboard doctor administered a tranquiliser?

To add insult to narrowly avoided death, your actions meant the passengers, according to the witness in seat 28E, were forced to watch Legally Blonde as the crew attempted to calm everyone.

The passenger said the film had the desired effect, until F15 fighter jets loomed on starboard as the plane diverted to Boston.

You at least had the decency to plead guilty to attempted murder in your 2003 trial, while pledging your allegiance as "a soldier of Allah" and enemy of the US.

So life without parole in the "Alcatraz of the Rockies" continues. I see the Guinness Book of Records lists this as the world's most secure lock-up with motion detectors, laser beams and pressure pads to keep tabs on its 400 largely permanent residents.

You vowed to starve yourself to death, claiming you were being "treated inhumanely", yet in a letter to criminologist Dr Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco, who's writing a book on jailed terrorists, you spoke only of "tactical regrets" for not planning the attack better. What's humane about that?

I sympathise that you only get one hour of restricted freedom each day, the food is probably more accurately termed "fuel", and orange will always be the new black in your wardrobe.

That's a hell of a way to live, but for those people on American Airlines Flight 63, it would have been a hell of a way to die.