Air Force Confirms Qatari Boeing 747 Will Enter Service as Air Force One This Summer

The U.S. Air Force confirmed Friday that the controversial Boeing 747-8 jet donated by the Qatari royal family has finished its yearlong modification and testing program and will be ready to enter service as a temporary Air Force One this summer, ending one of the most politically charged equipment debates of President Donald Trump's second term.

The luxury aircraft — the most expensive gift ever accepted by the U.S. government from a foreign nation — was formally accepted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in May 2025 and immediately touched off a bipartisan firestorm over the constitutional, ethical and counterintelligence implications of using a foreign-supplied jet for presidential travel. Senate Republicans including former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly questioned whether the gift complied with the Foreign Emoluments Clause, while intelligence officials warned that detecting and removing every potential surveillance device in an aircraft of that complexity was effectively impossible. The Air Force did not disclose the cost of the modifications, but lawmakers estimated last year that the work could exceed $1 billion.

The jet, which Qatar originally fitted out as a flying palace for its ruling family, is now being repainted in the familiar baby-blue, white and gold livery of Air Force One. Air Force officials said the aircraft has undergone extensive structural and electronic refit to bring it up to the secure-communications, missile-defense and survivability standards required of any aircraft carrying the president, and that the program is now in its final flight-testing phase at Joint Base San Antonio. Officials would not specify whether the modifications include a rebuild of the wiring harness — the most likely vector for hidden surveillance equipment — but said the jet had been "hardened to operational standards."

The Qatari 747 is being treated as a stopgap, designed to bridge the gap until Boeing finally delivers the two new VC-25B aircraft that have been in development since 2018. That program has been a serial embarrassment for both Boeing and the Air Force: the company has booked more than $2.4 billion in losses on the contract, the schedule has slipped nearly a decade beyond the original 2024 delivery date, and a key wiring subcontractor's bankruptcy in 2023 forced a near-complete redesign of the aircraft's mission-systems harnessing. Boeing now expects to deliver the first new VC-25B in 2028.

The Qatari aircraft's debut will arrive at a politically fraught moment. Trump's approval ratings have hit record lows for his second term, the Iran war has spiraled into its third month, and gas prices have hit a four-year high. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have already requested a Government Accountability Office audit of every dollar spent on the conversion, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement Friday that the aircraft "will be a flying monument to corruption." Trump, asked about the impending entry into service, told reporters at the White House on Friday: "It's a beautiful plane. They wanted to give it to me, I took it, end of story."