US President Donald Trump on Wednesday took his maiden flight aboard a retrofitted Boeing 747-8, worth $400 million and gifted by Qatar, marking the debut of a new Air Force One.
According to AFP, the refurbished jet does away with the light blue hull that has traditionally helped Air Force One blend into the sky, instead featuring a navy-blue belly with red and gold stripes in Trump’s preferred colour scheme, along with plush carpets, lie-flat seats, wood panelling and a presidential seal on the seat belts.
Trump told reporters he was proud of the luxurious plane. “You can do two things: You can low-key it, or you can show it,” he said, according to the agency.
The retrofitted Qatari jet is reportedly intended to serve as a “bridge” between the ageing Boeing jets that have served as Air Force One for 36 years and two new aircraft that are years behind schedule and not expected until at least 2028.
Trump toured the jet weeks after returning to the White House last year and directed that it be prepared for use for the remainder of his term, with the compressed timetable limiting the scope of modifications made to the plane.
Jeremiah Gertler, a senior analyst at aviation and defence consulting firm Teal Group, said the absence of these systems, along with a seemingly smaller number of communication antennas, suggested the jet was better suited to domestic use.
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“If you’re going on a long trip, you take the big fancy car, but if you’re just buzzing around town, you’ll settle for something less… this looks like it’s a domestic-only model,” Gertler told AFP.
The Air Force said the rapid conversion was carried out “without accepting any risk regarding security, safety, or secure communications,” the report said, though several complex engineering modifications required for the final Air Force One aircraft were intentionally excluded from the bridge jet, including widened doors and additional stairs built into the hull.
Trump has said he plans to use the new plane next week for the NATO summit in Turkey.
The jet has already carried him to North Dakota for his first official visit ahead of the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. While the gift from Qatar raised ethical concerns, Trump has defended it as a necessary replacement for the older presidential aircraft.
“This is a gift from a country that has treated us very well,” he said, adding that he has previously said the Qatari plane would eventually be donated to a presidential library.
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