Donald Trump Changes Plans For New Air Force One Plane: What We Know

Facing prolonged delays in Boeing’s Air Force One program, President Donald Trump is repurposing a formerly Qatari-owned 747 to ensure timely delivery of a new presidential aircraft.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had tasked Florida-based defense contractor L3Harris Technologies with refurbishing the jet, as an interim replacement for two planes Boeing was originally meant to deliver in 2024. On Friday, an unnamed source confirmed the report to Reuters.

Newsweek has reached out to Boeing and the Air Force via email and online contact form, respectively, for comment. L3Harris declined to comment when contacted.

Why It Matters

The report highlights the ongoing production issues that have plagued Boeing in recent years, in addition to the string of safety concerns the company grappled with over the course of 2024.

What To Know

The original $3.9 billion contract, won by Boeing during Trump’s first term, was to replace the aging VC-25A fleet—the presidential air transport fleet—with two customized 747-8s. These planes were set to be transformed into airborne command centers, capable of operating during extreme security threats and fitted with military-grade communications and self-defense capabilities.

At the time, Major General Duke Richardson, executive officer of the Presidential Airlift Recapitalization program, said that the aircraft would be “presidential mission-ready by 2024.”

In June of last year, however, the Air Force said that the first test flight of the new 747-8 had been pushed back from November 2024 to March 2025. The Air Force told Business Insider that the delay was due to a combination of “impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, interiors supplier transition, manpower limitations, wiring design timelines, and projected test execution rates.”

In July, Boeing said it was “fighting through a very, very challenging program” in building the two “very complex airplanes,” and adjusted the delivery dates of the two aircraft to 2027 and 2028. In its Thursday report, citing people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal said that Boeing had recently told federal officials the new planes would not be ready for service until around 2035.

As a result, President Trump has recently signaled his intention to shop around for alternatives, while expressing his frustration with Boeing’s delays.

In mid-February, Trump toured a Boeing 747-8, formerly owned by the Qatari royal family, Reuters reported at the time. The White House said that the tour was intended to highlight “the project’s failure to deliver a new Air Force One on time as promised.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, this plane is now being outfitted by L3Harris Technologies, a defense contractor headquartered in Florida, and which had previously worked with Boeing on communications for the replacement 747s.

What People Are Saying

President Trump told reporters in February: “I’m not happy with Boeing. It takes them a long time to do Air Force One. We gave that contract out a long time ago as a fixed-price contract, and I’m not happy with the fact that it’s taking so long, and we may do something else. We may go and buy a plane or get a plane or something.”

“I could buy one from another country, perhaps, or get one from another country,” he added. “So we’re looking at other alternatives, because it’s taking Boeing too long.”

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, speaking at the Barclays Industrial Select Conference in February, said: “We’re working on the Presidential aircraft VC-25. The President is clearly not happy with the delivery timing. I think he’s made that well known.”

Ortberg added that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was “actually helping us a lot in working through the requirements on VC-25 to try to help us get the things that are non-value-added constraints out of the way so that we can move faster and get the President those airplanes delivered.”