The Boeing 747-8 donated by Qatar to President Donald Trump may be seen in a new Air Force One livery as soon as this summer. Meaning that it may debut in time for Trump to debut his new executive jumbo jet in time for America’s 250th birthday, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Donald Trump accepted the huge Boeing Business Jet from the Qatari Royal Family shortly after entering office in 2025, as he was dissatisfied with the schedule for the two VC-25B still being built to full US Air Force specifications. It is now called the “Bridge Air Force One” and, when its brief stint of service ends, is intended to be donated to Trump’s presidential library.
Trump’s $400 Million Band-Aid
Despite widespread outcries against the prohibitive cost and extreme security risks of employing a civilian airliner for the role, Trump’s new Air Force One is slated to be ready to go about one year after the conversion process kicked off. To properly equip the aircraft for this role, it needs to be stripped down to the frame and essentially completely rebuilt. On top of that, in order to properly fulfill its role, the jet would need to receive aerial refueling equipment, an extremely complex and expensive retrofit.
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told lawmakers last year that the estimated cost to refit the plane would be $400 million. After taking delivery of the aircraft, it needs to be inspected for any kind of listening devices or other potential tools of espionage embedded in the aircraft by the previous owners or any other party. Once that’s complete, the plan would be equipped with an extremely long list of electronics and equipment for the purpose of communication and security.
Trump originally said that he expected to take delivery of the plane in February this year, a timeline believed to be impossible by experts familiar with Air Force One. The Pentagon did not officially accept the aircraft until May 2025, and the Air Force did not confirm that work had commenced until September of last year. Should the plane be ready by this summer, that would be a miraculous turnaround.
A retired senior military official familiar with Air Force One previously told CNN:
“You would want to check the airplane out completely – strip it down, check for bugs, things like that, harden it to make sure nobody could hijack the electronics on the airplane.”
The Next Air Force One
In Donald Trump’s first term as president of the United States, He negotiated a deal with Boeing worth 3.9 billion dollars to deliver two VC-25B jets to replace the legacy Air Force One 747-200s. The two 747-8 next-generation Air Force One aircraft under construction by Boeing are also retrofits from planes that were meant to be delivered to Russia’s Transaero, which were repurposed following the airline’s bankruptcy.
These planes are years behind schedule as Boeing claims to have lost $2.3 billion on the troubled program, despite intervention from Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) when he was still a trusted confidant of Donald Trump. Eight years after commencing the VC-25B program, Boeing appears to require at least two more years before it can finish the overhauls, with delivery expected in 2028.
Boeing Workers No Longer Need Top Security Clearance To Work On Air Force One
Boeing has been under pressure from President Trump to deliver the latest version of Air Force One as quickly as possible.
Trump’s Top Agenda
The decade that it is taking Boeing to construct the proper Air Force One replacement makes the sub-one-year retrofit timeframe of the “bridge” jet for Trump even more astonishing, and suspicious to some. Air & Space Forces magazine says that the USAF never confirmed which contractor was assigned the retrofitting project for the Qatari 747-8 BBJ or the scope of the refits, but it has been seen at facilities in Texas owned by L3Harris. Multiple media outlets have reported that L3Harris is performing the work, but no official clarification has ever been provided.
It remains unclear how the 747-8I BBJ ultimately came to be in the USAF’s ownership, given that Trump was seen touring the plane, and Department of Defense communications were revealed showing negotiations with Qatar taking place. Trump has been extremely vocal about his frustrations with the VC-25B program, and the entire “ bridge” aircraft project stems solely from his personal frustration.