Qatari-gifted Air Force One undergoing 'cosmetic upgrades,' administration source says
The new Air Force One gifted to the U.S. by Qatar is currently undergoing "cosmetic upgrades" to its interior, an administration source told ABC News on Friday.
This comes after President Donald Trump told ABC's Rachel Scott last month that the new plane would be sent away to get "maxed out" with increased security measures this month and that the process would take about 60 days.
"It's going to be maxed out. Yeah, it's going to go away and -- to make magnificent plane. Interior wise, the best. Engines, the best," Trump told Scott at the time. "[...] it has a lot of stuff, but to max it out, meaning you can go into any territory, it'll take about 60 days. And it's being sent in October to be maxed out."
The administration source did not mention security upgrades and the White House did not immediately respond to questions about whether security upgrades will be included, when the project is expected to be completed or when the plane will return to service.
The new plane, a gift from the Qatari royal family worth $400 million, has raised questions from some lawmakers and ethics experts over the unprecedented foreign gift.
Earlier this year, Trump called the jet, which is approximately 14 years old, "the world's most luxurious plane."
It is unclear the exact date the new Air Force One went into service, but Trump unveiled it in June. The last documented trip the Qatari-gifted jet made was Sept. 16 to North Carolina.
The president has flown on the old Air Force One for recent domestic trips, including Thursday's visit to Texas and Oklahoma, to Chicago last Sunday for the Presidents Cup golf tournament, to Tennessee last Saturday for a college football game, and to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Sept. 21 and 22.
Trump's trip aboard the new plane to the Republican midterm convention in early September was delayed after military personnel accidentally triggered one of the plane's emergency slides.
If the president's 60-day timeline holds, the new Air Force One would be out of commission for travel to the ASEAN Summit in the Philippines and the APEC summit in China, which are both scheduled in November. Trump has confirmed that he plans to attend APEC.
The president flew on the Qatari-gifted plane to Ireland from Sept. 11 to 13, marking its first international trip since he secretly switched planes while leaving the NATO summit in Turkey in July amid threats against him from Iran.
At the time, sources told ABC News that the Secret Service had urged Trump to fly on the older Air Force One as a security precaution, and the New York Times reported in July that the new plane lacked the anti-missile capabilities the previous model has. U.S. officials had also told ABC that the decision was influenced in part by differences in the plane's security capabilities.
The White House defended the plane's safety at the time.
"The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the president and his staff," Steven Cheung, the communications director, said in a statement to the New York Times in July. "As the president has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats."
After news broke of the secret plane swap, Trump said the decision was made by the Secret Service and U.S. military.
