Air Force One And The Boeing 747 Gifted By Qatar Will Get Trump's Tacky Paint Job After All
We've been hearing about President Donald Trump's desire to repaint Air Force One to be the inverse of his private 757 since his first presidency, and unfortunately it looks like it's finally happening. Air Force officials confirmed with CNN on Tuesday that the end is near for the baby blue and white livery that has adorned Air Force One since the Kennedy administration.
It also confirmed that the Boeing 747 donated to the U.S. military by Qatar as an interim Air Force One will receive the new livery and be flying as early as this summer, but the two Boeing-modified 747s are still not ready.
The tacky livery in question effectively bisects the fuselage of the plane with a dark red metallic line above a gold line, and a dark blue bottom. "In 2022, during the Biden administration, the livery was rejected by the Air Force citing cost and technical reasons." An Air Force spokesperson told CNN in 2022 that darker colors, among other factors, on the underside of the VC-25B, the military designation for the modified 747s that serve as Air Force One, might contribute to temperatures exceeding the current qualification limits of a small number of components. It's unclear how that concern has been addressed for the Trump administration's new livery.
The redesign is now an official requirement across the presidential and executive fleets
A Department of Homeland Security Boeing 737 started flying with Trump's preferred livery last year, and a military version of the Boeing 757 called the C-32 already received the paint job and will be delivered to the Air Force in the next few months. Three other C-32s will also receive the livery during scheduled maintenance.
Trump ordered the new Air Force One from Boeing in 2018, but due to a series of unsurprising delays on Boeing's end, the planes are still not ready. The two 747s that are being overhauled by Boeing to meet Pentagon standards were originally built for a Russian airline that never took the jets. The Wall Street Journal reported, "Among challenges Boeing struggled to solve: installing the jet's complex wiring system and interiors and finding enough employees who can get top security credentials to work on the highly classified project. Boeing also had a dispute with a key Air Force One subcontractor that declared bankruptcy in 2021."
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An Air Force spokesperson told CNN last month that the Qatari-donated jet that Donald Trump ordered to be retrofitted for use as Air Force One until the two repurposed Russian airline jets are completed is anticipated to be delivered no later than this summer.