The costs of modifying a luxury jet gifted by Qatar to the Trump administration to serve as an interim Air Force One for the president could be less than expected, the US Air Force secretary said this week.
Some lawmakers and outside experts have said the expected costs could be as high as $1 billion, as the aircraft would require substantial security and communications reworks before it could be used for presidential air travel.
Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said on Thursday that it’ll probably cost less than $400 million to retrofit the jet. Some costs, he added, would likely still exist regardless.
“There has been a number thrown around, on the order of a billion dollars, but a lot of those costs associated with that are costs that we would’ve experienced anyway,” such as new technologies, capabilities, and spare parts, Meink said at a House Armed Services Committee hearing.
The Boeing 747-8 in question was gifted by the Qatari royal family to the Department of Defense last month. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently directed the Air Force to start planning to modify it for use.
The extensive modifications are meant to ensure that when the plane becomes Air Force One — a call sign for any Air Force aircraft the president flies on but also the name that is most commonly associated with the well-known light blue and white Boeing VC-25 aircraft regularly used for flying the president — it meets the security demands for the mission.
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The Qatari aircraft is a 13-year-old luxury jumbo jet with multiple bedrooms, bathrooms, a salon, offices, dining areas, a living room, and a playroom for kids.
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Last month, the US Department of Defense said it would “work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the President of the United States.”
Air Force One is effectively custom-built to be a flying command center if needed. Concerns from lawmakers, especially Democrats, in Congress have centered around potential ethical problems, as well as worries about filling this role with a plane gifted by a foreign country and the work needed to upgrade it with necessary capabilities.
Connecticut Rep. Joe Courtney, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services subcommittee that oversees Air Force One, previously argued that “retrofitting a plane from Qatar would create huge costs & a security nightmare that would impede the work underway to deliver the actual AF1 by 2027.”
Trump has voiced disappointment with Boeing over delays in delivering the new VC-25B aircraft meant to replace the current Air Force One jets. Congressional leaders, however, warn that retrofitting the Qatari jet may be an unnecessary distraction.
At Thursday’s hearing, Courtney said that “based on the experience that we already have gone through with retrofitting planes, 747s, it’s clear that this is going to be a drain on the Air Force’s budget.”