Trump says Qatari jet could be ready for use as Air Force One in 6 months. Experts are deeply skeptical

CNN

4 days ago

President Donald Trump told reporters last month the donated Qatari jet could be ready for his use as Air Force One in February 2026, well ahead of the long-delayed delivery of two presidential planes from Boeing through a more traditional acquisition process.
'They say February,' Trump said in late July, when asked by a reporter when he expected to be flying on the new plane. 'Much sooner than the others. The others are being built.'
But former Defense officials and aviation analysts express deep skepticism about how realistic that timeline is, citing the immense task of upgrading a foreign government's plane to meet Air Force One's distinct requirements and ensuring it is safe and secure for a president to fly on, especially internationally.
Andrew Hunter is a former assistant secretary of the Air Force under the Biden administration. He oversaw an annual budget of more than $54 billion for hundreds of acquisition programs, including Air Force One. He thinks it would be 'challenging, if not impossible,' to complete the jet in that timeframe without Trump waiving some of the requirements that typically need to occur before a president can fly on a new plane.
'It would not be possible to replicate all the capabilities of an Air Force One on (the donated jet), on any time frame shorter than what they're doing with (the Boeing program),' he said.
Beyond the timeline concerns from an aviation perspective, the plan to use a donated Boeing 747-8 from Qatar poses a lot of questions and has drawn bipartisan scrutiny. Many are skeptical of the legality and ethics of accepting such a gift. Others are worried about the threat to security, based on how much goes into a jet fit for the leader of the United States.
But Trump remains undaunted and continues to project optimism about the timeline.
'We'll get this one a year-and-a-half, two years earlier (than the Boeing planes),' the president told reporters in late July.
The contracted jets continue to undergo renovations in San Antonio. The Qatari plane was previously parked in the city as well while awaiting upgrades, but open source aircraft tracker ADS-B Exchange shows the jet flew to Fort Worth Alliance Airport on June 29. The plane has rarely popped up on the open source tracker since then, with it last being recorded in late July at the Texas airport.
Refurbishments on commercial jets that don't have the strict and complicated requirements of Air Force One can take weeks or months depending on how much work needs to be done and the age of the aircraft. For example, according to aviation website Simply Flying, certain maintenance checks involving the complete disassembly of a plane are done every six to 12 years. That comprehensive inspection typically takes between three to six weeks.
But security concerns mean what the Qatari plane needs to undergo is even more arduous than that disassembly, experts say, and is very likely to take longer.
The plane can be ready by February, said Richard Aboulafia, a managing director at boutique aerospace and defense management consultancy AeroDynamic Advisory, but not with the capability or security that an Air Force One needs, raising the possibility that the administration may plan to cut corners in order to deliver it in that timeframe.
'It is absolutely going to be ready to start flying in February,' Aboulafia said, 'and instantly transmitting every onboard conversation to anybody around the world who has a connection to it.'
'It's very different from stripping a plane down and inspecting it,' Aboulafia said. 'Very different – overhauling systems, overhauling engines, doing what you need to do to get the plane operationally ready. That's an extremely different job than scanning it for security risks, very different.'
Retrofitting and installing the required security and communications equipment on a second-hand plane from another government, even a friendly one, is a monumental task, CNN has reported. US spy and security agencies tasked with the overhaul will need to essentially strip the aircraft down to its frame and rebuild it with the necessary equipment.
The more changes made to the plane itself, said Frank Kendall, the Air Force secretary under the Biden administration, the more that will need to occur to ensure that it meets air-worthiness requirements, taking longer.
'There's a chance Trump will never get this airplane no matter what,' Kendall, who now does consulting work, said.
However, Kendall, echoing other experts, said the donated jet could be ready in February, 'if the president waives almost all Air Force One unique requirements and minimizes modifications to the airplane.'
'It would probably result in a plane that would only be used inside the US,' he said.
The White House and the Air Force did not respond to a request for comment.
It's not clear where the upgrade process currently stands, and the experts CNN spoke to have not seen the jet in person.
In early July, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his Qatari counterpart signed an agreement outlining the terms of the jet's 'unconditional donation,' CNN previously reported, although the terms have not been formally announced.
An addendum to the agreement reviewed by CNN last month said the Air Force 'is in the process of finalizing the transfer of registration and will immediately begin execution of the required modifications.'
Conversations about replacing the decades-old planes currently used by the president began years ago under former President Barack Obama. Momentum began picking up under the first Trump administration when he struck a deal to purchase two existing aircraft from Boeing, but the addition of a plane donated by the Qatari royal family has added a strange and some say concerning twist to the saga.
In 2018, Boeing confirmed it received a $3.9 billion contract for two new presidential planes. By 2022, the president of the United States was supposed to be in a new plane.
But that timeline also didn't pan out, leading Trump to find an alternative.
When the president announced he planned to accept a jet from Qatar, it raised a lot of eyebrows. Several Republican senators expressed misgivings about the idea, noting the potential for security and legal risks. Trump's plan for the plane to go to his presidential library upon leaving office raised additional ethical concerns.
And while Trump has said it would be stupid to turn down a 'free, very expensive airplane,' officials say renovating the jet could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
When asked how much it would cost to retrofit the new plane, Trump deflected. Officially, the price tag to retrofit the Qatari plane for use by the president is classified, but Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told lawmakers in June that it will 'probably' cost less than $400 million.
'That's up to the military. I really don't know. I haven't been involved,' Trump said last month. 'It's their plane, it's, you know, the Air Force,' he said. 'They'll be spending that amount of money.'
The Air Force is looking to fund the upgrades by transferring hundreds of millions of dollars from the vastly overbudget Sentinel program to an unspecified classified project, sources familiar with a congressional notification about the transfer previously told CNN. Sentinel is a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile system that is being developed to replace the US' aging Minuteman III missiles.
Boeing's contract to replace two Air Force One jets had an original delivery date of 2022 – but now the planes are potentially expected by 2027, a timeline that would deliver them while Trump is still in office. It's one to two years earlier than Boeing had most recently predicted, after a global pandemic, supply chain issues and other problems stalled production and the company incurred losses totaling $2.5 billion on the program.
Hunter, the former Air Force assistant secretary, argues one of the biggest design challenges of the program is finishing interior design work on the aircraft. In 2021, Boeing fired GDC Technics, which was hired as a subcontractor to design and build the interiors of the new planes, and later sued the company, citing delays. GDC Technics countersued and later filed for bankruptcy.
Boeing declined to comment on where the interior work stands.
While the Qatari jet will require a major overhaul to ensure its safety, security and operability as it carries the president, the new Boeing jets are following the more traditional route, made in the United States by a well-known manufacturer. And Aboulafia sees promise in the troubled company, which is trying to turn a corner.
'Everything is kind of turning around,' Aboulafia said. 'They just had the second clean quarter for their defense unit, which was amazing … I have a much higher level of confidence in all of their programs, really, as a consequence of the management changes.'
Delivering the planes in the next two years – which Darlene Costello, the Air Force's acting acquisition chief, suggested was possible during her testimony before House lawmakers in May – would mark a significant acceleration for the project.
'I would not necessarily guarantee that date, but they are proposing to bring it in '27, if we can come to agreement on the requirement changes,' Costello said, referring to contract requirements that are being loosened to get to that earlier date – such as the Air Force 'relieving' Boeing of some of the top-clearance security requirements for workers performing work on the aircraft, which has also been blamed for some of the delays.
Kendall, the former Air Force secretary, said at the forefront of the minds of those working on a new plane, should be safety and security, rather than cost or speed.
'As Defense Department acquisition executive, I was responsible for both Marine One and Air Force One,' Kendall said. 'Over the years, the people that set the requirements for these aircraft and that work at the White House are not constrained by time or money unless directed otherwise by the president. They're constrained by their imaginations about which scenarios might occur in which they might need something to support or protect the president. Those 'requirements' dictate both cost and schedule.'
CNN's Alejandra Jaramillo, Natasha Bertrand, and Chris Isidore contributed to this report.