Qatari airforce escorts the plane transporting U.S. President Donald Trump as it prepares to land in Doha from Saudi Arabia on May 14, 2025. Trump touched down at Hamad International Airport in Doha, with relations between the two governments in the spotlight over Qatar’s offer to Trump of a $400 million luxury aircraft to serve as a new Air Force One and then pass into his personal use.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
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Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
The Trump administration has shared plans to possibly accept a used Boeing 747 plane as a gift from the royal family of Qatar to use as Air Force One — raising ethics and security concerns as well as bipartisan criticism from lawmakers.
Trump took to Truth Social to address the criticism over his plans to accept the plane.
“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,” he wrote.
Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory and an aviation analyst, told Morning Edition that Trump’s plan for the plane is a “fantasy.”
Aboulafia says that the significance of having the president travel in Air Force One, as compared to a standard 747, is based on cost, capability and security. And in order to guarantee the integrity of the jet, it must be reconstructed with the proper tools and systems needed in order for President Trump to use it for travel.
Air Force One is equipped with specialized systems and technologies that allow the president “to do everything from communicate with U.S. officials and military forces all over the globe,” Aboulafia detailed. He added that the plane is also designed for “basically surviving a worst case scenario like a nuclear war, or to avoid an aggressive pursuer,” making Air Force One “more survivable and far more capable than a traditional passenger jet.”
A Boeing-led program focused on delivering two new Force One planes has been in motion for several years now. The operation has faced several delays, with the predicted completion of the program’s first updated plane being pushed to 2029, or possibly even later.
Accepting a plane from a foreign government risks the security of the president, Aboulafia says. These concerns include the possibility of listening devices being inserted on the plane, which can compromise the president’s safety along with the American public’s. Aboulafia says the only way to guarantee the gifted plane’s trustworthiness is to completely strip the plane. But he believes that stripping the aircraft and reconfiguring it is a waste of time.
“The whole thing is basically incomprehensible. It doesn’t save any time relative to getting the current planned Air Force One up and running. It also offers exactly nothing over the Air Force One that’s in service,” said Aboulafia.
While speaking with NPR’s A Martínez, Aboulafia stressed the security concerns associated with acceptance of a foreign plane and the commitment required to prepare the aircraft for travel.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Interview Highlights
Martínez: Now the Trump administration says this Qatari plane can be converted quickly. What would it actually take to bring it up to presidential standards?
Aboulafia: Yeah, that’s, of course, a complete fantasy. Basically, the 747 Air Force One replacement, VC-25B, has been in the works for about seven or eight years. Some of that is due to poor execution. But some of it is just due to the huge amount of requirements and work needed to take a commercial jet and wire it up for war. So the best case scenario here is basically another four or five years after the basic green plane was received.
Martínez: Would it be much easier, so to speak, to just build an Air Force One plane from scratch? Or to take an existing plane and convert it to Air Force One?
Aboulafia: Well, the easiest thing of all would be to continue with the current Air Force One program of record, the VC-25. As a matter of fact, Boeing says that it could probably get that ready, if a couple of requirements were relaxed, within two years. That would also be the least expensive by a wide margin. Because the contract that Boeing signed for that plane was a fixed price contract, which means all of those cost overruns are being borne by Boeing and its investors and not the taxpayer.
Martínez: Now, what kind of security risk could a foreign-owned aircraft pose, even after it gets inspected? What are we thinking about here?
Aboulafia: Well, it’s a departure scenario. I’m not accusing the Qatari government of anything. But on the other hand, you can’t rule out the presence of bad actors in this whole process, inserting listening devices. And, of course, these would be extremely small. And of course, they’d throw in lots of other clutter, so that people looking for listening devices might get misled by something else. So basically, to be absolutely certain that there were no listening devices on board, you’d have to rip this plane down to its constituent elements.
Martínez: So it sounds like it almost is too much trouble for what it’s worth, in a way.
Aboulafia: Yeah, the whole thing is basically incomprehensible. It doesn’t save any time relative to getting the current planned Air Force One up and running. It also offers exactly nothing over the Air Force One that’s in service, which is a 747 earlier model, [747-200].
Martínez: So then what’s the upside for the Trump administration? Why even think about going this route?
Aboulafia: I really don’t understand any possible upside whatsoever. Except that, conceivably, depending upon how the rules are allowed or whatever else, that President Trump could take this plane with him after he steps down. But that assumes that there aren’t all kinds of top secret systems installed. But in terms of its actual utility while he’s in office, there is no virtue to it whatsoever, relative to either the current jet or the current replacement jet that’s now being worked on.
Martínez: When you think about what this news caused when it came down, in terms of people wondering exactly what this gift means and what it could mean for the future, is it just something that is maybe unique to this administration? I don’t know if I can ever imagine another administration wanting to even consider a gift like this.
Aboulafia: Just the whole idea that this would constitute a valid form of presidential transport is bizarre. I think there’s almost an embarrassing miscomprehension going on here that Air Force One is any plane the president gets in. That’s technically true. But in terms of the plane that is given to him to survive the worst kinds of eventualities and to defend the country in the event of a crisis, no it is not just a plain old jetliner donated by somebody. It is something that takes a massive level of systems integration and a high level of missionization.
