A US White House spokesperson said on the 20th that President Trump's new “Air Force 1” special plane will undergo “additional modifications” this fall, and Trump will travel on the old special plane at that time. Some experts believe that the new special plane lacks proper missile detection and countermeasure systems, but short-term modifications cannot completely solve the problem. Trump told media reporters in Washington on the evening of the 19th that the new special plane will be “fully upgraded.” White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said the next day that the new special plane “can fully guarantee the president's safe travel,” but it needs to undergo “additional upgrades and enhancements,” and is expected to take about a month. The new “Air Force 1” special plane is a Boeing 747-8. It was gifted by the Qatari government in 2025. An American defense contractor previously completed the modification of the new aircraft in accordance with the requirements of the US military to meet the “special plane standards” of the president's travel. During Trump's first presidential term in 2018, US Boeing obtained a contract to convert two airliners as brand new “Air Force One,” but delivery was delayed over and over again, and delivery of the first one was delayed until mid-2028. For this reason, the aircraft donated by Qatar became a “temporary replacement,” but the modification process was rather hasty, and its safety performance was questioned. Trump took the new “Air Force 1” from the US to Turkey to attend the NATO summit earlier this month, but when he returned home, he first took the old “Air Force 1” to Britain's Mildenhall Air Force Base, then switched to a new special plane. The US “New York Times” revealed that the switch was in response to a request from the US Secret Service because the new special plane did not have some of the safety features of the old special plane. Douglas Burke, executive director of the Mitchell Space Research Institute of the United States, believes that in order for the new special plane to be put into use quickly, the White House is likely to have adopted a “lower basic defense standard,” and that the new special plane is only capable of dealing with “low-level threats” when it is delivered. However, even if the new special plane is further modified, it is likely that it will only be possible to upgrade equipment such as electronic jammer and foil jammer within a month. Mark Cancian, a senior consultant at the US Center for Strategic and International Studies, also believes that “there aren't many things you can do in a month,” and that related work may be limited to software updates, etc.

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