Trump unveils Qatari Air Force One ahead of NATO summit

Washington,UPDATED: Jun 20, 2026 03:56 IST

US President Donald Trump on Friday unveiled a new Air Force One, a former Qatari-owned jumbo jet that has been converted into the official US presidential aircraft. Trump said he would take the new jet to next month’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, and that his return from the Group of 7 summit in France this week was the last planned trip aboard the old Air Force One.

The aircraft is being used as a ‘bridge’ plane until new presidential jets ordered from Boeing arrive, which is now expected in 2028. The administration formally accepted the luxury Boeing 747 from Qatar last year for presidential use, despite questions over the ethics and legality of accepting such an expensive gift from a foreign government.

Trump made the announcement inside a large hangar at Andrews Air Force Base before a few hundred Air Force personnel. He spoke after stepping off the new plane as his signature tune, ‘God Bless the USA’, played. ‘This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody has ever seen before,’ Trump said.

The new aircraft drops the Kennedy-era robin’s egg blue exterior of the older plane for a bolder design. Its underbelly is painted navy blue with a red stripe above it. The left side, where the president boards, carries the presidential seal, while the tail features a large American flag. Trump said, ‘Now, when we land at airports in London and in Germany and different places, nobody tops this one, and that’s the way we have to have it for our country,’ adding that the colours and design were ‘to my taste, I will say’. He also said the new Air Force One would do a flypast during the July 4 celebrations next month.

Trump said the US was in ‘a little bit of a logjam’ as it waited for the Boeing jets, which had originally been scheduled for 2024 but have been delayed. He said he had asked the emir of Qatar for the use of one of their planes. ‘See, a normal president wouldn’t do this. A normal president wants to stay away from aircraft,’ Trump said. ‘But our country has to be represented properly.’ He also said he would return to China ‘at some point’, apparently referring to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that China is hosting in November.

The Air Force said on Friday that any aircraft designated Air Force One ‘must meet rigorous security requirements’ and that the Qatari plane ‘was modified under a disciplined engineering approach that prioritised these exact core capabilities above all else’. It also said ‘much of the previous head of state interior layout’ had been kept intact. The Air Force has previously said the security modifications would cost less than USD 400 million.

Trump’s push to reshape the presidential aircraft began in his first term, when he directed that a new fleet should adopt a colour scheme close to that of his personal plane. Then President Joe Biden reversed that decision in March 2023 after an Air Force review suggested darker colours could raise costs and delay delivery, but Trump restored his preferred design after returning to office. The Air Force said earlier this year that other government jets carrying top administration officials would also use a similar red, white and navy colour scheme.

An Air Force spokesperson told The Associated Press that the two current presidential planes, known as VC-25As, will remain in service until the new Boeing aircraft, called VC-25Bs, enter service. It is not yet clear how the older jets will be used, but the spokesperson said both the Qatari aircraft and the VC-25As would be available, and that ‘the Presidential Airlift Group will select the appropriate aircraft for each mission based on operational requirements’. In sum, the new aircraft will serve alongside the existing fleet until Boeing’s delayed replacements are ready.

With PTI Inputs

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