Air Force Buys Lufthansa 747-8s Amid Air Force One Delays
“Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said this week, defending President Donald Trump’s acceptance of a luxury Boeing 747-8 from Qatar. But the U.S. Air Force’s latest step buying two second-hand 747-8s from Lufthansa represents a more traditional approach to firming up the future presidential airlift fleet, even as Boeing’s formal Air Force One program falls further behind schedule.
The $400 million deal, as confirmed by an Air Force official, will have the German carrier deliver one aircraft early next year and the second before the end of 2026. These jets, once part of Lufthansa’s long-haul roster, will not serve as presidential transports themselves but will be used for crew training and as a source of spare parts for the VC-25B fleet. The Air Force stressed the purchase as indispensable because the 747-8i is no longer in active production and is substantially different from the aging 747-200-based VC-25A aircraft currently in service.
Boeing’s VC-25B program, tasked with converting two 747-8is originally built for the defunct Russian airline Transaero, has suffered years of delays. The first delivery, once scheduled for 2024, is now expected in mid-2028, a full four years late. The aircraft are being heavily modified in San Antonio with the installation of secure communications systems, self-defense capabilities, a medical annex, and hardening for resistance against extreme threats. On Dec. 12, the Air Force awarded Boeing a $15.5 million contract modification to integrate improved communications. That brings the value of the contract, awarded in July 2017, to more than $4.3 billion.
Those delays have brought fierce criticism from Trump, who has said on multiple occasions that he wants to take to the skies on the new jets before leaving office in January 2029. Boeing officials have said easing some of the specifications could move delivery up to as early as 2027, but the Air Force’s latest timeline still has the first VC-25B arriving in mid-2028. Boeing has already eaten billions in losses due to the fixed-price nature of the contract and the complexity of the conversion work.
Meanwhile, the administration is working to acquire the disputed Qatari jet. The aircraft when it was delivered to the Qatar Amiri Flight in 2012 had been fitted with an opulent interior with a main bedroom, guest suites, and several lounges. The Defense contractor L3Harris Technologies had been awarded the contract to militarize it, according to Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, who projected that the costs would be less than $400 million by diverting funds from the Sentinel ICBM program. However former defense officials say that overhauling the Qatari jet to meet the presidential security standards would take years and require taking it down to its constituent elements to ensure it was free of all surveillance devices.
These security concerns are multiplied by the fact that Air Force One is a component of the nuclear command and control network, whereby the president could issue military orders in the most dire circumstances. Aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia characterized Trump’s timeline for the Qatari jet as “a complete fantasy,” saying even the VC-25B program has taken almost a decade because of the sheer volume of modifications necessary to “wire it up for war.”
Ethics questions loom, too. Critics-senators like Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island-have labeled the acceptance of the Qatari plane “an appalling breach of ethical standards” that will raise “immense counterintelligence risks” should some other country gain access to sensitive systems. The administration has dismissed such concerns, framing the gift as a cost-free benefit to the Defense Department.
For the Air Force, this Lufthansa buy is a pragmatic step to ensure operational readiness for the incoming fleet of VC-25Bs. By buying training aircraft and spare parts now, the service is trying to head off logistical and technical hiccups with the transition from the 747-200 to the 747-8i platform that will mark the next era of the presidential airlift capability.
