Trump Wants a New Air Force One So Badly He's Refurbishing a Qatari Plane

The luxury plane is being outfitted in Texas for Trump's use as his frustration mounts with Boeing

- Andrew Tangel, Josh Dawsey & Sharon Terlep

President Trump is done waiting for Boeing. Frustrated by delays on Boeing's work to deliver a new Air Force One, Trump has commissioned a smaller defense contractor to ready an interim presidential plane by year's end.

Boeing will continue plugging away on a pair of Air Force One replacement jets, which have fallen so far behind that Trump might not get to fly on them while in office. The U.S. government has commissioned L3Harris to overhaul a Boeing 747 formerly used by the Qatari government.

The Melbourne, Fla.-based company is tasked with retrofitting the plane with certain specialized systems to transform the luxury aircraft into a presidential jet, some of the people said.

Trump wants to have the plane available for use as early as the fall, some of the people said. He has regularly asked for updates. On April 18, the CEO of Boeing came to the Oval Office to meet with Trump, people familiar with the meeting said.

The White House, Boeing and L3Harris declined to comment.

In his first term, Trump commissioned two new presidential planes to replace a pair of aging jets, which are among the world's most complex aircraft with communications and defensive systems that serve as a command and control platform for the commander in chief. Boeing won the $3.9 billion contract and at one point was expected to have the planes ready by last year. But it is now years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget, after a series of supplier, engineering and manufacturing setbacks.

L3Harris has been a contractor to Boeing working on communications systems for the pair of replacement Air Force Ones. The company, a product of the 2019 tie-up between L3 Technologies and Harris Corp., aims to become an alternative to the Pentagon's biggest suppliers and has been growing quickly. It generates roughly one-third the annual revenue of Boeing.