Trump's free plane could cost taxpayers millions

Yahoo

12-05-2025

President Donald Trump insists he's getting a 'free, very expensive airplane' from Qatar's royal family. But it's not much of a gift for the American taxpayer.
The Qatari Defense Ministry is talking to the White House about transferring the luxury-configured Boeing jet to the Pentagon, which would oversee its retrofitting into a makeshift Air Force One. But a private contractor would have to rip it apart to turn the jet into a flying White House for the president with secure communications and classified upgrades, according to former Air Force officials and lawmakers, an expensive and complicated prospect that could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
'This isn't really a gift,' said Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, which oversees executive airlift. 'You'd basically have to tear the plane down to the studs and rebuild it to meet all the survivability, security and communications requirements of Air Force One. It's a massive undertaking — and an unfunded one at that.'
Administration officials argue that the current aircraft — two aging military versions of the Boeing 747 — are increasingly hard to maintain, and the replacements are years behind schedule. A third aircraft could help fill the gap.
'It's a great gesture from Qatar,' Trump told reporters on Monday. 'I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, 'No, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane.''
But the aircraft in question — a Boeing 747-8 jet once owned by Qatar's royal family — is the same base model as the two VC-25Bs currently under slow and costly modifications by Boeing. And that's where the similarity ends.
'It's what's inside the aircraft that matters,' said Kevin Buckley, a former Air Force official who oversaw the Air Force One replacement program. 'The presidential mission equipment is unique. It's hardened. It's secure. It's survivable.'
The aircraft would need to be torn down and rebuilt from the inside out — including overhauling electrical wiring, avionics and power systems — to install secure presidential communications, self-defense tech and electromagnetic shielding.
'The cost of a retrofit like this would likely be on the order of a heavy maintenance cycle for a VC-25A, which is in the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars,' said former Air Force acquisitions chief Andrew Hunter.
Add to that the significant cost of sweeping the aircraft for software modifications or embedded foreign tech. 'That's not a trivial thing to do,' Hunter said. 'That alone would cost tens of millions of dollars.'
Building the aircraft is one thing, but maintaining and operating a presidential aircraft at the very highest standards is an expensive prospect all on its own. Each VC-25B costs more than $2.5 billion, with another $7.7 billion in projected long-term operations and support costs over 30 years, according to a 2021 internal Pentagon estimate.
'This gift could become a very expensive asset to own and operate,' Hunter said. 'You might even ask why Qatar no longer wants the aircraft. And the answer may be that it's too expensive for them to maintain.'
The VC-25B program itself is already behind schedule, and Boeing now projects delivery in 2027 — but only if some requirements are trimmed, Air Force acquisition official Darlene Costello told Congress this month.
Buckley predicts the retrofit of the Qatari aircraft will compete with or strain the workforce involved with the VC-25B.
'If you're pulling people into doing this new thing, you're not pulling them out of the air,' he said. 'You're pulling them out of the same labor pool — and a very specialized one. You're talking about people with high clearances who already have a ton of work on their plate.'
Democrats have largely denounced Trump for the ethical concerns with accepting the gifted plane from Qatar. But Trump argued the move would prove a money saver, calling Democrats 'world class losers' for questioning the move.
"The fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane," Trump said in a Sunday Truth Social post. "Anybody can do that!"
Rep. Rick Larsen — the top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, whose Washington state congressional district includes Boeing commercial aircraft production lines — rapped Trump's proposed interim plane deal as 'a corrupt bargain' and a distraction from the work needed to deliver the two planes under contract.
"The unnecessary delays in the AF1 program are an Air Force problem, not a Boeing worker problem,' Larsen said in a statement. "But answering those delays with an unlawful foreign gift isn't the answer."
Boeing is working to deliver two new presidential planes in a program that's seen considerable setbacks and cost overruns. The aircraft manufacturer signed a $3.9 billion contract in 2018 to deliver the new presidential airplane after Trump became personally involved in driving down the cost.
Due to the contract's fixed price, Boeing has absorbed the additional multibillion-dollar cost increase for the program.
Shortly after returning to the White House, Trump signaled he may shift course and railed against Boeing's performance in delivering the new Air Force One.
"I'm not happy with Boeing," Trump told reporters in February, saying his administration may pursue other options due to the delays. "We may do something else. We may go and buy a plane, or get a plane or something."