{"id":774543,"date":"2026-07-20T20:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/774543\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T20:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:56:10","slug":"white-house-trump-to-fly-old-air-force-one-for-about-a-month-as-qatari-gifted-jet-gets-upgrades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/774543\/","title":{"rendered":"White House: Trump to fly old Air Force One for about a month as Qatari-gifted jet gets ‘upgrades’"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2013 The White House says President Donald Trump<\/a> will be returning to an older Air Force One plane<\/a> for about a month as the new, Qatari-gifted jet undergoes \u201cadditional upgrades and enhancements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s use of the new red, white and navy blue aircraft has faced much scrutiny not only because it was gifted by a foreign government, but also because it appears to not be equipped<\/a> with some of the same missile detection and countermeasure systems as the older jets.<\/p>\n

But it came under deeper scrutiny this month when he left the NATO summit in Turkey<\/a> on the older, baby blue Air Force One and made a previously unscheduled stop at a base in the United Kingdom. Trump then swapped back onto the new Qatari-gifted plane at Royal Air Force Mildenhall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new Air Force One is perfectly safe for the President\u2019s travels, but will receive additional upgrades and enhancements in the fall which will take approximately one month to complete,\u201d White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. \u201cDuring that time, the President will fly on the old Air Force One.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement from Leavitt elaborated on a comment from the president as he returned to Washington on Sunday night, when he told reporters that the new plane will be sent to be \u201cmaxed out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump claimed earlier this month that the stop in the United Kingdom was so U.S. troops at Mildenhall could look at the new plane. He denied to reporters that the jet switch was due to security concerns, although he also said that he has a threat against him \u201call the time\u201d and is Iran\u2019s \u201cNo. 1\u201d target. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2013 The White House says President Donald Trump will be returning to an older Air Force One…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,12,451,17153,3,452,453,800],"class_list":["post-774543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-karoline-leavitt","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}