Trump Flies Home on Old Air Force One, Skips Qatari Jet
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- Trump swapped at the last minute from the new $400 million Qatari-gifted Boeing 747-800 to a legacy baby-blue VC-25A for his flight home from a NATO summit in Turkey, saying only he wanted to fly the older plane "for old time's sake."
- The Qatari-gifted jet lacks some missile detection and countermeasure systems that the established Air Force One planes carry, according to post-unveiling imagery and aviation analyst Jeremiah Gertler of Teal Group.
- The swap came less than a day after the U.S. military carried out large retaliatory strikes on Iran over attacks on merchant shipping, and Iran holds Shahed drones and Shahab ballistic missiles with roughly 800-mile range to Turkey.
- Trump's transponder was temporarily disabled shortly after takeoff from Turkey — a security protocol normally reserved for war-zone environments, not long-scheduled NATO summits — while leaders' flights from Germany and the U.K. kept trackable transponders.
- The new Qatari aircraft was redirected to RAF Mildenhall in the U.K. for troops to tour; the Air Force said the bridge jet serves as a temporary domestic stopgap until permanent Air Force One replacements arrive in 2028.
Why it matters: The $400 million Qatari retrofit has produced a plane the Air Force itself concedes is missing "highly complex" countermeasures, and the president chose not to fly it at the exact moment the U.S. was actively striking Iran. With permanent replacements delayed to 2028, no fully hardened, equipped presidential aircraft is available for years — a gap that becomes more material every time U.S. forces go on offense.
