Boeing Air Force One work continues amid furor over Qatar plane

PARIS — A top Boeing executive said the company is proceeding with work on a contract to build two new Air Force One jets amid a pending deal by President Donald Trump to accept a donated jet for the mission from Qatar.

Stephen Parker, Boeing’s interim president and chief executive officer, told reporters at the Paris Air Show there had been “no impact at all” on the firm’s assignment of transforming a pair of 747-8 aircraft into VC-25B Air Force One planes.

At a press conference, Parker largely managed to sidestep the hot potato that is the controversial Qatari gift to Trump, saying Boeing was instead “laser focused” on achieving the requisite safety and other certifications of the two aircraft for which the company is on the hook.

Trump’s surprise focus on using a Qatari-donated jet for the presidential transport aircraft has sparked multiple controversies, including concerns about the feasibility of quickly adapting it for presidential use, its cost and the possible impropriety of accepting such a gift.

Boeing has been working on the VC-25B program for about a decade, but the planes have repeatedly fallen behind schedule amid supply chain issues and a lack of properly cleared workers. They were originally expected for delivery in 2024 but now are not expected to be done until 2029 — or earlier if the Air Force scales back on the program’s requirements. Trump has repeatedly voiced his displeasure with Boeing’s delays.

A number of details about the status and terms of the gift fro Qatar, and how the plane would be adapted, remain unknown.

The Pentagon on May 21 announced that it had accepted the aircraft. But a week later, The Washington Post reported the agreement for the transfer had not yet been finalized.

A contentious exchange over the Qatar plane developed between Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., during a June 11 Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. Hegseth first said he could not provide specifics about a potential Air Force One in the public hearing, before acknowledging a memorandum of understanding with Qatar over the jet had not yet been signed.

Also unanswered at the Paris Air Show were questions regarding a potential role for Boeing in refitting the Qatari 747, a plane fashioned to be a flying palace rather than the airborne command-and-control center that Air Force One is supposed to be.

“We’ll support the president in any way,” Parker said.

L3Harris may have a role in adapting the Qatari plane, according to a Wall Street Journal report in May. L3Harris has declined to comment.

The Air Force on May 21, following the Pentagon’s premature announcement of the acceptance of the Qatar plane, said it was preparing to award a contract to convert the 747-8 into an Air Force One.

Multiple Democratic lawmakers have voiced their displeasure to Hegseth over his refusal to detail matters such as cost and timing of the modification work.

And some lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., have also blasted Trump’s plans to transfer the jet to his presidential library toward the end of his administration, saying it would be a waste of money to so heavily modify an aircraft that would only be used for a limited time.

Some experts have warned adapting a jet from Qatar — even a free one — into Air Force One would cost at least $1 billion to add self-defense capabilities and countermeasures, encrypted communications and command-and-control capabilities that would allow the president to direct U.S. forces in a catastrophic emergency.

In a June 5 hearing, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink estimated it would cost less than $400 million.