Air Force Stonewalls Questions on Qatari Air Force One Boondoggle
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, at a House Armed Services Committee hearing, Rep. Joe Courtney (CT-02), the top Democrat with Congressional oversight of Air Force One, questioned the Secretary of the Air Force on the true costs of President Trump’s AirForce One “deal” with Qatar. Watch the clip here.
Despite the obvious high cost of retrofitting a non-secure civilian passenger plane into an Air Force One plane, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink avoided answering detailed questions on the complexity and true costs of such an enterprise.
Rep. Courtney pointed out that, based on the experience of retrofitting two 747 planes – projects authorized by his subcommittee – the cost will exceed $1 billion. The cost of those two replacement Air Force One aircraft, which are nearing completion, has exceeded $3 billion. This estimate was confirmed by a Washington Post report last week where Air Force officials estimated the cost for the Qatari plane to be $1.5 billion to meet the aircraft’s unique requirements.
“Based on the experience of the 2018 planes, we know that the contract for retrofit was $3.9 billion. Again, some of that was the purchase of the planes from Boeing – roughly about $800 million. But again, if you just do the math, it was about $3 billion for retrofit. There's been cost overruns. They had to strip those planes that were built for another purpose down to the studs, and as you said, there's been issues. Just using that and extrapolating from that it's clear that this new, third plane is going to cost well over a billion dollars.
“The sooner we rip the band-aid off and get that information out there, the better. It would be helpful for us in terms of deciding whether this is a smart path to go down,” said Courtney.
As the Ranking Member of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, Rep. Courtney has been outspoken on the expensive national security nightmare that comes with accepting Qatar’s plane. During consideration of the budget reconciliation bill in the House, the GOP struck down Rep. Courtney’s amendment to block any funds from the bill from being used to retrofit the Qatari plane.
In a May Seapower & Projection Forces Subcommittee hearing, Rep. Courtney questioned the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Darlene Costello, on the status of the new Air Force One fleet currently under construction. She confirmed that the new Air Force One fleet aims to be delivered by 2027. To watch the full hearing Q&A, click here.