The Air Force expects to have a Boeing 747 gifted from Qatar ready to serve as an interim Air Force One presidential transport plane by this summer.
In a statement to Defense News, an Air Force spokesperson said the service “remains committed to expediting delivery of the VC-25 bridge aircraft in support of the presidential airlift mission,” and the plane is on track to be delivered no later than summer 2026. Breaking Defense first reported the expected delivery plans for the Qatar plane.
The Air Force declined to comment on what changes may have been made to the requirements for the Qatar plane to expedite its delivery as a presidential aircraft.
Boeing has been working on two new VC-25Bs, or Air Force One aircraft, for about a decade to replace the existing pair of aging planes, but has fallen years behind schedule amid supply chain challenges and a lack of properly cleared workers. The planes were originally to be delivered in 2024, but are now likely to come in 2028 or 2029. Boeing is under a $3.9 billion fixed-price contract to modify the airplanes, but has repeatedly taken losses on the program.
President Donald Trump has voiced deep dissatisfaction with the VC-25B delays and criticized Boeing, and, shortly after taking office for a second term, news emerged that the administration was planning to accept a 747-8 donated from Qatar and have it revamped into an Air Force One.
The current Air Force One planes, the VC-25A, have been in service for about 35 years, and are showing their age. Earlier this week, a VC-25A flying Trump and other personnel to the international Davos conference had to return to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland after experiencing an electrical problem.
Reports indicate that the Qatar plane will be used for a few years and then donated to Trump’s presidential library after he leaves office.
The plan drew intense criticism from some observers and congressional Democrats, who raised questions about the ethics of accepting such a massive gift that would end up in a presidential library in a few years. Critics also questioned whether the plane could be properly modified quickly enough to be used, if corners might be cut to speed up the process and whether the effort would be a wise use of money.
Typically, an aircraft specially designated to be Air Force One is upgraded with hardened defenses, countermeasures and encrypted communications to allow a president to survive and direct forces from the air in the event of a war or other major catastrophe.
Air Force Sec. Troy Meink said in a June 2025 Senate hearing that the service would use leftover money from the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program, which was not needed in 2024, to pay for the Qatar plane’s revamp. Meink told lawmakers that the effort would cost less than $400 million — not the roughly $1 billion as some had projected — and could be done in less than a year.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., at that time called Meink’s $400 million estimate “wildly rosy,” and said if the plane were to arrive in late 2026, that would not leave much time to get much use out of it before it winds up in the library.
“That doesn’t sound like a great use of my taxpayer dollars,” Murphy said.
Meink said in a House hearing earlier that month that the higher $1 billion cost estimate included things like spare parts and training that have already been covered in the broader VC-25B program.
L3Harris is reportedly working on the Qatar plane’s upgrades, but the company has declined to comment.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.
