{"id":614986,"date":"2026-09-05T05:06:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T05:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/614986\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T05:06:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T05:06:20","slug":"trump-expected-to-use-qatar-donated-air-force-one-for-visit-to-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/614986\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump expected to use Qatar-donated Air Force One for visit to Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president Donald Trump<\/a> is planning to use the new Air Force One jet donated to him by Qatar when he travels to Ireland next week.<\/p>\n

It is set to be the first time he will use the luxury aircraft on an overseas trip since questions were raised about its defence capabilities.<\/p>\n

Trump is expected to arrive in Ireland next Saturday. He is scheduled to meet President Catherine Connolly<\/a> and Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> in separate engagements at the Phoenix Park<\/a> before travelling to his Doonbeg<\/a> golf course, where the Irish Open tournament will be taking place.<\/p>\n

The US president is due to fly from Dublin to Shannon Airport<\/a>, possibly travelling by helicopter, to stay at his Doonbeg resort to watch the tournament, which is due to conclude on the Sunday. He is expected to depart later that day.<\/p>\n

The New York Times reported that Trump had said several weeks ago that the 747-8 aircraft donated by Qatar would be taken out of service for roughly a month to allow for security upgrades. It is unclear whether these have been completed. <\/p>\n

The Washington Post first reported on Trump\u2019s plans to use the Qatari plane for his trip to Ireland. A senior White House official, speaking on background, would not comment on specific upgrades to Air Force One.<\/p>\n

The plane was retrofitted quickly to be pushed into service for Trump to use during his current term, after two new jets commissioned from Boeing for presidential travel were badly delayed. But those planes are built from the ground up as essentially flying presidential command centres, with extensive capabilities to fend off missile strikes.<\/p>\n

The Qatari jet\u2019s safety capabilities came into question after Trump last used it on a foreign trip, to the Nato summit in Turkey, in July. Trump declared that he would fly on one of the older presidential aircrafts for his departure, instead of the Qatari jet that he had flown into Europe with, for \u201cold times\u2019 sake\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Trump secretly transported out of Turkey in catering container over Iran threat concernsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The New York Times reported that the Qatari jet lacked defensive capabilities that the older models have.<\/p>\n

People briefed on the matter later told the New York Times that officials had learned of a threat to the president and Air Force One while they were in Turkey, prompting the switch.<\/p>\n

Although he boarded the older plane at Ankara airport, it later emerged that the president had been whisked off it and on to a military jet, leaving the older Air Force One aircraft as a decoy flight. <\/p>\n

\u2013 Additional reporting: New York Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump is planning to use the new Air Force One jet donated to him by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3656,969,15470,61,60,1393,1843,43,29685,4444],"class_list":["post-614986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-catherine-connolly","tag-donald-trump","tag-doonbeg","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-open","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-phoenix-park","tag-qatar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}