ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. — President Trump on Friday showed off the new Air Force One, a formerly Qatari-owned — and much debated — jumbo jet that has been converted into the official U.S. presidential aircraft.
The new plane — gifted from the Qatari government, raising a host of legal, ethical and security questions — will take on a new look, eschewing the Kennedy-era robin’s egg blue exterior in favor of white on the top half, its underbelly navy blue with a red stripe above it.
“This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody has ever seen before,” Trump said from inside the massive Andrews Air Force Base hangar, as a couple of hundred assembled Air Force personnel looked on. He spoke after stepping off the new plane in a dramatic flourish, as his signature tune “God Bless the USA” played.
He confirmed that he would be taking the new jet to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Ankara, Turkey, next month and indicated that he would be returning to China “at some point,” presumably a reference to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that China is hosting in November. His return from the Group of 7 summit in France this week was the last planned trip aboard the old Air Force One, he said.
“Now, when we land at airports in London and in Germany and different places, nobody tops this one, and that’s the way we have to have it for our country,” Trump said, noting that the colors and the design were to “my taste, I will say.”
He added that the new Air Force One will do a flyover during the July 4 celebrations next month.
The gift from Qatar is serving as a so-called bridge aircraft to carry the president until new planes ordered directly from Boeing arrive. That is currently slated for 2028.
The administration formally accepted a luxury Boeing 747 jet from Qatar last year to be used as the presidential airplane, despite questions about security and the ethics and legality of accepting such an expensive gift from a foreign government. Trump has claimed in the past that he would not fly around in the Qatari jet once he leaves office and said it would instead be donated to a future presidential library.
Trump on Friday said the U.S. was in a “little bit of a logjam” as it awaited the delivery of the new jets directly from Boeing, which had originally been scheduled for 2024 but have been delayed. He recalled asking the emir of Qatar for the use of one of their planes.
“See, a normal president wouldn’t do this. A normal president wants to stay away from aircraft,” Trump said Friday. “But our country has to be represented properly.”
Members of Congress and others have questioned the cost and effort that would be needed to make security modifications to an aircraft from a foreign government.
The Air Force said in a news release Friday that any plane deemed Air Force One “must meet rigorous security requirements” and that the Qatari plane “was modified under a disciplined engineering approach that prioritized these exact core capabilities above all else.” The Air Force also said “much of the previous head of state interior layout” of the plane was kept intact.
The Air Force has said in the past that security modifications to the jet would cost less than $400 million.
Trump’s efforts to reimagine the presidential airplane date back to his first administration, when he directed that an incoming fleet of new jets would adopt a color scheme that was nearly identical to that of his personal airplane. Then-President Biden reversed the decision in March 2023 as an Air Force review suggested that the darker colors could increase costs and delay delivery of the new jets, but once Trump returned to office, he returned to his desired colors for the plane.
Other government jets that carry other top administration officials will use a similar red, white and navy color scheme, the Air Force said earlier this year.
An Air Force spokesperson, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive plans, told the Associated Press that the two current planes, known as VC-25As, will not be retiring. Instead, they will remain in the fleet until the new Boeing planes, referred to as VC-25Bs, come into service, the spokesperson said.
It is unclear how the older jets will be used but the spokesperson said that both the Qatari jet as well as the VC-25As will be available for use and “the Presidential Airlift Group will select the appropriate aircraft for each mission based on operational requirements.”
Kim and Ceneta write for the Associated Press. Kim reported from Washington. AP writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report from Washington.
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