Boeing VC-25Bs Delayed

Two VC-25Bs, the military version of the Boeing 747-8, were purchased by the United States Air Force from the aerospace firm in 2017. Those jets were initially intended for the Russian airline Transaero, but were not delivered due to the airline’s bankruptcy.

The aircraft are now being modified to replace the aging VC-25As that entered service during President George H.W. Bush’s time in the White House, and went on to carry Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Trump used the two planes in his first term as did President Joe Biden during his single term in office.

Beyond the fact that Trump has criticized the aircraft for their age and argued that the U.S. needs a more “impressive” aircraft serving as Air Force One, there have been reliability issues.

In January, the VC-25A that was carrying the president to the NATO summit in Switzerland experienced mechanical issues and had to return to Joint Base Andrews, delaying Trump’s arrival. He was also forced to arrive at the summit in an Air Force C-32, which is based on the smaller Boeing 757, an aircraft typically used to carry the vice president and designated Air Force Two.

A More Impressive Aircraft Ready For Service

The donated former Qatari aircraft, which previously shuttled the Gulf state’s ruling elites, was delivered and first entered service in 2012. It is thus a second-hand jet, even if it has been described as being akin to a flying palace. The question is how modifications to this aircraft were completed in just a year, while the two VC-25Bs have face significant delays and won’t be available for official use by the POTUS until late 2028 or early 2029.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the $400 million in taxpayer-funded modifications have included the installation of “top-secret communications gear,” but the interior is largely unchanged.

“By and large, the airplane that we’re getting is in the same condition from an interior perspective,” White told the newspaper of record.

In other words, it has remained a luxury aircraft fit for a sultan rather than for an elected official.

“They had a Qatari government luxury plane, they took it apart, cleaned it, put the same pieces back together and added some U.S. government pieces to it, some of it probably that was supposed to go to the dedicated built aircraft, and put it back together again,” suggested technology industry analyst Roger Entner, founder of Recon Analytics.

“In the end they put a new paint job on the outside, but on the inside it is an enhanced Qatari luxury government plane,” Entner wrote in an email. “That takes a lot less time than custom-building a plane for the president.”

Rushed Modifications

Other U.S. Air Force officials have maintained that the aircraft is safe to carry the leader of the free world and that it should still provide the level of security we’d expect from such an aircraft.

“Our commitment to providing the president with a secure, resilient, and reliable airborne command post is unwavering,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach, via the Air Force media release. “The VC-25B Bridge program is a testament to the Air Force’s ability to innovate and rapidly evolve to ensure the continuity of our government under any conditions.”

It is also important to remember that the Qatari plane is being rolled out as a temporary solution until the custom-built ones is finished, meaning it almost certainly doesn’t have the full suite of capabilities as the Boeing version. This may be a case of the administration bending standards.

“The central issue is not whether a Boeing 747-8 can physically carry a president. It plainly can. The issue is whether a foreign-owned luxury aircraft, provided by a government with its own strategic interests, can be transformed on an accelerated timeline into something that credibly serves as a secure presidential command platform,” said geopolitical analyst Irina Tsukerman, president of threat assessment firm Scarab Rising.

In an email, Tsukerman suggested that the arrangement combined operational shortcuts, reputational exposure, and unresolved security questions in a way that invites scrutiny rather than confidence.

“The VC-25B program is delayed because the requirements for a presidential aircraft are exacting by design,” Tsukerman continued. “The platform is meant to function as a hardened node of national authority under extreme conditions. It has to sustain secure, redundant, and resilient communications across multiple classified networks, operate through electromagnetic disruption, integrate defensive countermeasures, and preserve command continuity in degraded or hostile environments.”

Those features are not optional layers. Instead, they are among the aircraft's core purpose. It is not something that can be rushed, as evidenced by the delays with the pair of VC-25Bs.

“The integration process is slow because every subsystem carries strategic implications, and each one has to be verified within a tightly controlled security architecture,” warned Tsukerman. “The Qatari aircraft is being introduced under compressed timelines that signal accommodation rather than equivalence. The designation of a ‘bridge’ aircraft places it in a category defined by lowered expectations.”

Moreover, the security concerns for such an aircraft would typically begin with its origin.

The two VC-25Bs were stripped to the frames and are being completely rebuilt. Every inch of those aircraft can be scrutinized, but the same can’t be said of the 747-8i from Qatar, likely in part because the internal style is something the current president likes. It should be noted that, as a “bridge,” it won’t likely carry another POTUS. Current plans call for it to be maintained by the Trump Presidential Library after Mr. Trump leaves office.

Safe And Secure?

Even in the short term, the aircraft’s security and safety should be still questioned.

“A foreign-provided platform arrives with a prior configuration, maintenance history, component lineage, and supply chain exposure that fall outside the standard U.S. control environment,” suggested Tsukerman. “Even with extensive inspection and retrofitting, the assurance process is inherently reactive. Intelligence vulnerabilities are not limited to obvious hardware. They can reside in obscure interfaces, legacy components, or interactions between systems that were never designed within a unified security framework. The burden of proof becomes unusually high, and the margin for undetected risk remains difficult to eliminate.”

From a purely technical perspective, the unresolved issue is not whether the aircraft has been modified, but which capabilities have been reduced, deferred, or omitted. It is hard to imagine that in the past year, some corners weren’t cut during the modification process.

“Accelerated conversion implies prioritization, and prioritization implies exclusion,” said Tsukerman. “A platform can meet baseline safety and still fall short of the full operational envelope required for presidential command authority. Any limitation in secure communications, defensive systems, or hardened infrastructure directly constrains how the aircraft can be used and what contingencies it can support.”

Weekend Shuttle?

Given these concerns, it is possible, perhaps even likely, that the two VC-25As that serve as Air Force One will remain in use for international trips, with the Qatari aircraft shuttling the president to his home in Florida, where Trump has spent the vast majority of his weekends during this second term, and to other destinations in the United States. Security may be less of a concern domestically.

“Operational patterns are likely to reflect those constraints,” added Tsukerman. “The aircraft can be confined to environments assessed as lower risk or more controllable, while more demanding missions rely on existing platforms. That introduces a hierarchy of usage in which the aircraft’s designation does not fully correspond to its functional role. The presence of such a hierarchy underscores the underlying compromise.”