All Air Force One aircraft are about to be repainted in the U.S. president’s favourite colour palette, according to an Air Force spokesperson – including the brand-new jet donated by Qatar that’s being prepped to serve as a temporary Air Force One.
President Donald Trump’s aircraft are set to be decked out in bright red, white, gold and dark blue. For the past sixty years, presidential jets have sported the blue-and-white colour scheme introduced during the Kennedy administration.
The presidential ‘armada’ is not limited to the two new Boeing VC-25B jets being converted for the role. It also includes the Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8i, which is officially designated a VC-25 bridge aircraft, as well as four smaller Boeing C-32 aircraft. These are known as Air Force Two when the Vice President is on board, and they are also used by the First Lady and Cabinet Secretaries.
While any aircraft carrying the president uses the call sign ‘Air Force One’, the jet most commonly used for presidential travel functions as a flying White House. According to Boeing, it includes an office, a bedroom suite, two galleys capable of preparing up to 100 meals at a time, workspace for staff, and a medical facility.
Last November, a Department of Homeland Security Boeing 737 Business Jet became the first U.S. government aircraft to feature the new red, white, gold and blue colour scheme.
One of the four C-32s has also now been repainted in Trump’s preferred colours and is expected to enter service in the coming months. It was recently spotted taking off from Greenville, Texas, with a dark blue underside and bold red and gold stripes along the fuselage. Avid observers noted that, unlike in the original renderings, the American flag near the cockpit was not depicted as a solid rectangle, but instead appeared in a flowing mid-wave design.
The new livery will also be applied to the 747 gifted by Qatar, which was accepted as an ‘unconditional’ gift in 2025 and is currently undergoing upgrades. Once the retrofits and security modifications are complete, it could be flying as Air Force One as early as this summer. U.S. officials have confirmed that the U.S. government will cover the costs of these modifications. The aircraft is valued at around $400 million (approximately €340 million).
The colour scheme has long been a personal priority for Trump. As early as 2018, during his first term in office, Trump had already outlined his preferred colour scheme. ‘Air Force One is going to be incredible,’ he said at the time. ‘It’s going to be the top of the line, the top in the world. And it’s going to be red, white and blue, which I think is appropriate.’
The livery was later rejected by the Biden administration, which concluded that it ‘could drive additional engineering, time and cost’. Officials also cited technical concerns, warning that darker colours, particularly on the underside of the VC-25B aircraft, might cause temperatures to exceed the qualification limits of certain components.
In 2023, the Biden administration proposed an alternative design that remained close to the traditional Kennedy-era colour scheme, albeit in a slightly darker shade of blue.
After Trump returned to the White House, the new colour scheme was reinstated, with a model of the redesigned aircraft displayed in the Oval Office.
The overall cost of repainting the fleet has not been publicly disclosed. However, an Air Force spokesperson told the BBC that the new colour requirements are not expected to cause further delays or increase the programme’s costs.
