The U.S. Air Force has announced on Friday that the new presidential aircraft, gifted by Qatar last year, has completed flight testing and is being prepared for rollout this summer.

“The Air Force’s VC-25B Bridge aircraft has officially completed modification and flight testing and is being painted. The aircraft is on schedule to roll out in a new red, white and blue livery this summer,” the U.S. Air Force said in a statement.

General Dale White, who oversees the project, told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that the jet’s interior remains largely unchanged.

“By and large, the airplane that we’re getting is in the same condition from an interior perspective,” he said.

“The level of detail that the foreign nations put into their head-of-state airplanes are very different than the approach that the United States uses, which is a lot more utility focused,” he added.

Qatar gifted the Boeing 747 to U.S. President Donald Trump in May 2025 during his visit to Doha as part of a wider Gulf tour, which marked the first visit to the country by a sitting U.S. president since 2003.

His visit to Qatar saw agreements worth at least an estimated $1.2 trillion signed between Doha and Washington.

Trump had said the planes he used were old and described the gift from Qatar as a “great gesture”.

“I think it’s a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much,” Trump told reporters on 12 May 2025. “I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer.”

The current Air Force One fleet, also Boeing 747s, dates back nearly four decades to the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

The call sign “Air Force One” was first used unofficially in 1953 after a presidential aircraft carrying Dwight Eisenhower entered the same airspace as a commercial flight with the same identifier, creating confusion for air traffic controllers. It was officially adopted in 1962, the same year President John F. Kennedy became the first U.S. president to fly in a jet built specifically for presidential use.