It will likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit a Qatari jet given as a gift to President Donald Trump, the head of the U.S. Air Force said Thursday, but not $1 billion as speculated by some critics and probably not even $400 million, the figure first provided by the Trump administration.
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told members of the House Armed Services Committee that earlier estimates put forward by some elected officials and the media were overblown, according to a report from The Hill.
“We believe the actual retrofit of that aircraft is probably less than $400 million,” he said.
Representative Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) pressed Meink on the details of the work that will transform the Boeing 747-8i, once owned by the prime minister of Qatar, into the new Air Force One, but the secretary said he could not go into specifics for security reasons.
Courtney said he could not envision the redesign costing less than $1 billion, given that Boeing’s contract to build two new jets to serve as the next Air Force One is worth $3.9 billion.
“You can’t retrofit a plane that’s built for another purpose for Air Force One and expect it to be a free plane,” he said. “You’ve got to install encrypted communications technology, you have to harden the defenses, you have to put countermeasures in there…It’s a flying Situation Room.”
The new aircraft is “going to be a drain on the Air Force’s budget,” he added.
Presidential Redesign
The Defense Department formally accepted the aircraft from the government of Qatar in May.
The jet will have to be dismantled and reassembled to check its integrity, and to install advanced, top-secret communications and anti-spying systems. The entire overhaul could take years to complete.
There is still some dispute over how the aircraft was first offered to the White House. Trump maintains the Qatari government offered him the jet unprompted as a gesture of goodwill, but Qatari officials maintain members of the Trump administration reached out after the president voiced frustrations with delays in Boeing’s work on the new Air Force One.
The deal drew criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, who see a conflict of interest and a security risk. Defense and aviation experts have cautioned that Qatar or some other group might have installed a listening device on the aircraft to eavesdrop on Trump and his inner circle.
