Trump Force One

After an orgy of spending and years of delay, the president’s helicopter and jet are getting cost-efficient upgrades— unless the passenger-in-chief interferes.

- Garrett M. Graff

Donald Trump has long had a thing about Air Force One. He denigrated the presidential jet on the campaign trail, calling it “a step down … in every way” from his own plane, a gilded Boeing 757. He mocked Air Force One’s fuel-guzzling engines and blasted President Obama for taking it to campaign rallies and on vacation. Then, one Tuesday in December, after Trump won the presidency but before he had a chance to ride on the aircraft, he picked up his Android phone and tweeted about a nascent project to replace the presidential jet with an even more powerful and capable craft. “Costs are out of control, more than $4 billion,” he wrote at 8:52 a.m. “Cancel order!”

At Boeing Co.’s offices in Washington, D.C., executives hastily canceled their routine morning strategy meeting. The Air Force One project, known blandly as the Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization program, hadn’t been the topic of any recent news coverage, but within minutes it was leading every cable news channel. When the stock market opened, Boeing shares dipped a little more than 1 percent.