After Boeing Delays, Trump Is Getting a Secondhand Plane for Air Force One

Since his archetypal administration, Donald Trump has obsessed implicit replacing Air Force One. However, delays with the contracted Boeing person pushed transportation backmost by different decade. Now, Trump’s impatience is showing arsenic he’s commissioned an interim level from different contractor connected apical of the existing multi-billion declaration with Boeing.

In 2018, Trump commissioned Boeing, which has supplied statesmanlike planes since Roosevelt, to regenerate Air Force One for $3.9 billion. Currently, a thirty-five-year-old duo of modified Boeing 747-200s (or VC-25A) marque up Air Force One. Boeing failed to conscionable its archetypal Dec. 2024 deadline for the archetypal craft owed to delays caused by proviso and plan issues, workforce complications, and more.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Boeing told national officials astir predetermination clip that they couldn’t present until astir 2035. So, Trump took matters into his ain hands. According to the outlet, Trump has commissioned L3Harris, a Florida-based defence contractor, to modify a level antecedently utilized by the Qatari government. (Ironically, the interim pitchy is simply a Boeing 747.)

This is reportedly the aforesaid plane that Trump toured successful February successful a weird nationalist shaming of Boeing. He wasn’t subtle astir it, either. At the time, Steven Cheung, the White House Communications director, said the circuit was to “highlight the project’s nonaccomplishment to present a caller Air Force One connected time.” Trump besides said, “No, I’m not blessed with Boeing…We whitethorn bash thing else. We whitethorn spell bargain a plane.”

Sources told the Wall Street Journal that Trump wants the interim level disposable arsenic aboriginal arsenic the fall. Air Force One isn’t your emblematic plane, though. As PopSci outlined, it has an precocious navigation system, encryption capabilities, antiaircraft countermeasures, and more. It’s improbable that L3Harris tin proviso an equivalent to the existing duo that fast. Andrew Hunter, the Air Force’s acquisitions main nether Biden, told the Wall Street Journal, “You could bash immoderate paint, you could bash immoderate communications upgrades, and I fishy it would beryllium hard to bash excessively overmuch beyond that connected that timeline.”

Years earlier Trump archetypal took office, the Air Force selected the Boeing 747-8 arsenic the adjacent statesmanlike plane. Under the existing contract, Boeing is expected to proviso 2 747-8s. Per the Wall Street Journal, elder officials debated cancelling Boeing’s declaration earlier Trump’s inauguration. Since then, determination person besides been discussions astir a imaginable lawsuit.

Trump did thing worse than sue, though. Immediately aft his election, helium sic’d Elon Musk connected Boeing. In February, CEO Kelly Ortberg said that Musk was helping region constraints to velocity things up. However, Musk besides considered questionable measures similar lowering information clearances for workers, which isn’t perfect for the president’s plane.

It’s chartless however overmuch Trump’s second-hand level volition cost. However, Boeing is already billions of dollars implicit budget. But ostentatious displays are a cardinal portion of Trump’s presidency. And who knows. Maybe this time, Trump tin prime the paint.