New Air Force One Could Be Delayed Another Year – By Marcus Weisgerber (Defense One) / June 8 2021
The GAO’s latest cost estimate brings the price tag to $2.6 billion apiece
The arrival of two new $5 billion Air Force One presidential jets could be delayed by 12 months due to a dispute between Boeing and one of its suppliers, Air Force officials told lawmakers Tuesday. Boeing has told the Air Force they need the extra year to finish modifying the 747-8 airliners into flying White Houses. But like everything involved in this high-profile, multibillion-dollar project, that’s up for negotiation.
“We will assess all of that,” Darlene Costello, the service’s principal deputy assistant secretary of acquisition, technology, and logistics, said Tuesday at a House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee hearing.
A Boeing spokeswoman was not immediately available to comment.
Boeing has also told the Air Force it wants to recoup COVID-related costs for the project, but it has not requested funding, Costello said. In April, Boeing officials told investors that the company had lost $318 million on the Air Force One program, a total that includes pandemic-related costs and the dispute with a supplier that was supposed to build the interior of the planes.
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