President Donald Trump on Friday visited the Qatari 747 jumbo jet that has been converted so it can serve as Air Force One, speaking in front of a newly painted plane that he said would deliver “a level of luxury that nobody’s ever seen before.”
The jet formerly flew the Qatari royal family, which gifted it to Trump last year. It recently arrived at Joint Base Andrews, sporting the new dark blue, red and gold paint scheme preferred by the president and needing to complete a few last flights before officially serving as Air Force One.
Qatar “was so nice,” Trump told Air Force service members and other senior officials after touring the jet. “We were at a little bit of a log jam.”
“I asked the emir if we could use the brand new 747,” he said. “I said, ‘We’d like to use it for a little while, because the planes are pretty old, our planes are old.’ See, a normal president wouldn’t do this.”
Information on the jet’s arrival was closely held. The only tip that a transition was near occurred earlier this week when a senior White House official tweeted a goodbye and thank you to the older, light-blue and white Air Force One.
On Friday, Trump visited Andrews, for an event that was billed as remarks to Air Force service members, to get a private tour of the gifted aircraft, which Qatar offered shortly after Trump’s second term began. The aircraft was inside a closed hangar on base. A podium was set up near a banner that said “doing what they said can’t be done,” underneath the presidential seal on the new plane’s fuselage.
The gift of a luxury jet from a foreign government has little precedent in U.S. history. The nation’s founders were concerned about a president’s decisions being swayed by gifts “from any King, Prince, or foreign State,” and drafted the Constitution to ban taking presents without permission from Congress.
Trump has said that the gift was made to the nation, not to him personally, but he has also said the jet would be part of his presidential library following his presidency.
“This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody’s ever seen before, probably even almost outside of an airplane,” Trump said. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like this, and in only 10 months, a time frame no one thought possible.”
Trump has described himself as being conscious of other leaders’ jets at airports when they have gathered for summits, and he had derided the current generation of 747s as puny in comparison to newer head-of-state conveyances.
“Everything was designed good. It was my taste, I will say,” Trump said. “This is representative of our country. Now, when we land in airports in London and in Germany and different places, nobody tops this one.”
The aircrews who will fly the president had been training on a mock-up and on other 747s as they waited for the security and communications modifications to the new plane to be completed. Now that the plane is at Andrews, they will begin initial commissioning flights of the aircraft, what the Air Force described in a statement as a “final exam” of the plane.
“Once these flights are successfully completed the aircraft is officially ‘commissioned’ into the active executive airlift fleet and becomes available for presidential missions,” the service said.
Trump stepped out of the new 747 to kick off a ceremony welcoming the new plane and pumped his fist in the air. He said the Air Force had to build a new hangar for the plane, which is a larger 747 than the existing fleet.
“There will never be one like this,” Trump said. “This is very unique. This is considered the world’s most luxurious.”
While the 14-year-old jet’s exterior has been repainted since it was handed over by the Qataris, the Air Force kept the interior mostly the same. That means Trump will travel using the same lavish lounge areas designed for the Qatari royal family, instead of the more office- and workspace-oriented design of the current Air Force One. The current jets went into service in 1990, during the George H.W. Bush administration.
Gone is the robin’s egg blue, white and silver color scheme that dates back to the Kennedy administration. All of the Air Force jets that fly senior U.S. officials around the world are being repainted according to Trump’s color preference.
The Air Force said that by making minimal changes to the previous head-of-state interior, the service was able to field the aircraft faster and retain the security features required.
Prior to whatever adaptations were made for presidential use, the jet boasted two full bathrooms, nine lavatories, a main bedroom and guest bedroom, multiple lounges, a private office, and cream and tan-colored leather seating on both decks, according to photos of the interior posted by the Swiss aviation company AMAC Aerospace that have since been removed from its website.
The interior of the plane is outfitted in tan, light brown and shades of gold, with brown wood paneling and cabinetry. One wall sported a framed print of a duck swimming in the Reflecting Pool, which Trump recently refurbished but which has struggled with an algal bloom. The presidential seal is on the seat belts.
Many of the seats are of the modern lay-flat variety, according to officials who escorted reporters on a tour Friday, a change from the current generation of Air Force One, where officials in the president’s entourage often have to struggle with partial recline during long international trips.
The Qatari plane is a “bridge” to satisfy Trump, who has grown frustrated with production delays and cost growth as Boeing has worked to retrofit two other 747s to serve as the new Air Force One. The Air Force awarded the contract to purchase two 747s for Boeing to retrofit in 2017, during Trump’s first term in office.
The schedule for retrofitting those planes has slipped to the point that they may not be ready before the end of Trump’s second term. Instead, the Pentagon accepted the Qatari jet and worked to get it ready for this summer at a cheaper price tag.
In May, when Pentagon officials told lawmakers that the total cost to overhaul the plane had not exceeded $400 million, lawmakers questioned why the cost to overhaul the two other jets was so much more — and whether that meant the new plane would not be as capable as the planned future aircraft. The Government Accountability Office has estimated that the costs to get the two other 747s operational now exceed $5.6 billion.
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