U.S. President Donald Trump will make his first flight on a new Air Force One plane gifted by Qatar later this week, the White House said Monday.
Trump will take the jet on Wednesday to North Dakota for an event marking the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, a White House official told AFP.
As he unveiled the plane earlier this month, Trump praised the Gulf emirate for being "so nice and providing" the modified Boeing 747, which previously served Qatar's head of state.
Billionaire Trump has been obsessed since his first term with replacing the aging jets that serve as Air Force One, and he hand-picked the new plane's red, white and blue livery.
But critics have raised a host of ethical, constitutional and security concerns about the gifting of an aircraft worth hundreds of millions of dollars by a foreign power like Qatar.
The U.S. Constitution prohibits presidents and other officeholders from receiving "any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State" unless approved by Congress.
Trump's administration has said the plane is a direct gift to the U.S. Department of Defense -- while stoking further concern by saying the plane would eventually be donated to Trump's presidential library.
The Qatari-gifted plane is meant to be a stopgap until U.S. planemaker Boeing delivers two new 747-8 aircraft to serve as the presidential jet in a program plagued by delays and cost overruns.
© 2026 AFP
12 Comments
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Bob Fosse
Hopefully they didn’t rush this refurb. Be hard to blame any problems on ‘leftist activists’.
wallace
No doubt Trump will fly in it as often as he can.
bass4funk
No, because the people that work on Air Force One, not one of them are DEI hires, they have been working for decades fixing previous Air Force One models in the fleet
That won’t be necessary
wallace
Boeing has had some very tragic accidents and problems.
wallace
The running costs are much higher than those of the Air Force One plane.
Blacklabel
Incessant crying over a free plane.
Bob Fosse
What was the taxpayer cost of the refurbishment?
Was it ‘free’?
bass4funk
But not Air Force One.
Wasabi
Do you know how many people chase after free gifts, hoping to get something for nothing? Yet life consistently proves that there is no free lunch. True value is earned, not given.
wallace
The plane has cost money to convert, will cost more to run, and will only be in service for a short time. Is it good value for the taxpayer, and will Trump buy it if he wants it for his library?
bass4funk
Yes, since Boeing is late with the upgraded production line of the New York Jets, this will do for now
Maybe, but it will go into his library for sure, that's why they're building it so that it will accommodate it
HopeSpringsEternal
Good, as we can't have POTUS, the leader of the Free World, busy trying to achieve first ever modern era Peace in Middle East, stopping Iranian Nuke Proliferation, flying around in AF1 airplanes built in the 1980s!