Trump’s gifted Qatari 747 would be a security problem, officials say

President Donald Trump on Monday praised Qatar for offering his administration a free luxury jet, but current and former U.S. military, defense and Secret Service officials said he will likely have to waive existing security specifications to be able to use it.

Trump said he would be a “stupid person” not to accept the gift of a $400 million Boeing 747-8, and called it a “great gesture” by Qatar. The president said that he intended to use the plane for a “couple of years” while his administration waits for a pair of Boeing planes to be completed to the strict military standards befitting Air Force One.

A White House official said it was premature to say how long upgrades to the Qatari plane could take. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, like others interviewed, also declined to say when the Trump administration expects to take possession.

Flight records show that the Qatari jet was moved five weeks ago to San Antonio International Airport, suggesting that preparations for improvements might already be underway.

The Wall Street Journal first reported this month that Trump had commissioned defense contractor L3Harris to retrofit the Qatari plane in Texas. ABC News reported Sunday that the plane would be transferred to the Trump administration as a gift.

The lavishly appointed double-decker jet – originally purchased for use by the Qatari royal family – left Doha on March 30, making a stop at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and then at Bangor International Airport in Maine on April 2, according to Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for the flight tracking service FlightRadar24. The plane then flew to San Antonio the next day.

Trump emphasized Monday that the Qatari jet is a significantly newer plane than the ones currently available for the president’s use, which – although fitted with state-of-the-art defensive countermeasures, in-flight refueling capability and secure communications equipment – date to the George H.W. Bush administration in the 1990s.

“You know, we have an Air Force One that’s 40 years old. And if you take a look at that, compared to the new plane … it’s not even the same ballgame,” Trump told reporters. “You look at some of the Arab countries and the planes they have parked alongside of the United States of America plane – it’s like from a different planet.”

The Qatari jet boasts two full bathrooms, nine lavatories, a main bedroom and guest bedroom, multiple lounges, a private office, and cream and tan-colored leather seating on both decks, according to photos of the interior provided by the Swiss aviation company AMAC Aerospace.

But retrofitting the 13-year-old aircraft to current Air Force One requirements would take years of work and billions of dollars, current and former U.S. officials say. Such a task would be impossible to complete before Trump leaves office.

The Air Force referred comment to the White House, and the Secret Service declined to comment. L3Harris also declined to comment.

Securing a new, modern Air Force One is such a priority for the president that he has on display in the Oval Office a model of one of the planes Boeing was contracted to deliver – finished with his preferred dark-blue paint trim. After debuting the model during his first term, Trump displayed it at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office, before returning it to a coffee table in the White House. At his Commander-in-Chief inaugural ball in January, Trump cut a saber into a cake, atop which rested the model plane.

The White House official said Qatar offered to “donate a plane to the Department of Defense,” but that the gift would not be accepted by Trump this week during his visit to the country. Trump departed Monday on his first major foreign trip, which will include stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The president’s jet has a raft of security, communications and support requirements that are highly classified and have proven costly and cumbersome.

“This is a flying nuclear-hardened command post,” said a former U.S. official with knowledge of Air Force One operations. “It has to have secure capability at multiple levels.” The Air Force would have to “rip” open and rebuild the Qatari plane – which has been flown for years in service of other countries and individuals – to bring it up to standard, said the official.

Counterintelligence is also a concern, said former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. “We would have to be sure nobody had planted bugs on the airplane,” he said.

High-end communications have to be protected from jamming, cyberattacks and nuclear blasts, current and former officials said.

“You’d pretty much have to take that plane down to the skeleton and put it back together,” said Mac Plihcik, a retired Secret Service agent who worked on President Barack Obama’s detail. “The security of every individual component is a big deal.”

Paul Eckloff, a former Secret Service agent who was a supervisor in Trump’s first administration, said rigorous inspections are performed after all presidential transport vehicles leave the production line. The gifting of a plane from a foreign government would probably warrant an even harder look, Eckloff said.

“They’re going to walk that thing inch to inch and say, ‘Does this nut belong here, does this bolt belong here?’” Eckloff said.

Trump can waive any of this due diligence, Kendall said. “He’s the commander in chief. The only way he’s going to be flying on this airplane while he’s in office is if he waives a lot of these requirements.”

Trump has already stepped inside the Qatari jet, less than a month after his inauguration. The aircraft was brought to Palm Beach International from Doha on the morning of Feb. 15 – when Trump toured the plane for more than an hour on his way to a play a Saturday round of golf.

At the time, White House spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement that Trump was examining “the new hardware/technology,” noting that Boeing was running behind on delivering the new Air Force Ones.

During Trump’s first term, Boeing agreed to a fixed-price, $3.9 billion contract to deliver two modified Boeing 747 airliners that would take on the “Air Force One” moniker when the president is on board. But delivery for the first of the two jets isn’t expected until at least 2027 and Boeing has incurred billions of dollars in cost overruns that it has had to absorb.

“Donald Trump is getting a plane that is outfitted for an emir,” said Garrett Graff, a historian who has written about presidential security, referring to the Qatari jet. The president would likely balk at dismantling some of the luxurious accommodations on board and replacing them with government-issued equipment, said Graff, who described the gift as a counterintelligence nightmare. Trump, he noted, has signaled his interest in the plane since February, giving adversary intelligence services months to figure out ways to penetrate it.

Trump’s acceptance of the Qatari plane comes after years of Pentagon frustration and skepticism about Boeing’s ability to meet U.S. government plans for the next Air Force One.

Last week, senior Air Force officials told lawmakers that Boeing now projects that two planes – originally scheduled to be delivered last year – may now be available by 2027, as security parameters that originally were a part of the project have been eased.

Darlene Costello, a senior Air Force official, told a group of House Armed Services Committee members that she “would not necessarily guarantee that date,” and trade-offs may be required to have the first aircraft available by then.

A former senior defense official with direct insight into the new Air Force One said Monday that failures at Boeing and the Pentagon have combined to put the executive branch “in this position,” with growing concerns about delays that were once “wished away” coming back to “kick their a—.”

The contract for the new Air Force One jets, signed with Boeing during the first Trump administration, included a number of requirements that were “gold-plated,” the former senior defense official said, noting significant requirements for electrical power, refrigeration units and in-flight medical capabilities. The program also calls for a four-engine design to increase redundancy if there are mechanical failures.

“When you have all that stuff lined up, I just think it’s almost an impossible task to get it done” in time, the former senior defense official said, questioning the Air Force’s wisdom to stick with its requirements when problems first emerged.

The official assessed that from a technical standpoint, refurbishing the Qatari jet can be done, but with no clear timeline and a limited supply of parts available for a plane that is no longer in production. Boeing ceased production on the 747 in January 2023.

While Democratic officials were quick to condemn the conflict of interest presented by Trump accepting the plane from a foreign government, even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), a Trump ally, told reporters on Monday that he wants “to make sure that this whole thing is kosher,” adding that “time will tell.”

White House and administration officials maintain that the gift is in compliance with relevant laws, despite concerns being raised by Trump critics about it violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

As discussions about the transfer of the plane were underway, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel drafted a memo explaining why it thought Trump’s receipt of the jet would be permissible, according to an official with knowledge of the memo. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was registered to lobby on behalf of Qatar during Trump’s first term, subsequently signed off on that memo.

Trump said Monday that once he leaves office, he will not use the Qatari jet and that it will be transferred to his future presidential library.

He suggested that the addition of a decommissioned Air Force One on display at Ronald Reagan’s presidential library – a plane that had been in use by the government for nearly 30 years when it was retired – “actually made the library more successful.”