The US air force cannot account for US$1 billion in savings that the president Donald Trump said he has negotiated for the programme to develop, purchase and operate two new Boeing jets to serve as Air Force One.
“To my knowledge I have not been told that we have that information,” Colonel Pat Ryder, an air force spokesman, said when asked how Mr Trump had managed to reduce the price for the new presidential plane. “I refer you to the White House,” Col Ryder said. A White House spokesman did not respond to repeated inquiries about Mr Trump’s comments.
Mr Trump has boasted that he has personally intervened to cut costs of two military aircraft – the F-35, the fighter jet built by Lockheed Martin, and Boeing’s Air Force One.
“They were close to signing a $4.2bn deal to have a new Air Force One,” Mr Trump said at a rally on Saturday in Florida. “Can you believe this? I said, ‘No way.’ I said, ‘I refuse to fly in a $4.2bn airplane. I refuse.’”
Instead, Mr Trump said, “we got that price down by over $1bn, and I probably haven’t spoken, to be honest with you, for more than an hour on the project. I got the generals in, who are fantastic. I got Boeing in. But I told Boeing it’s not good enough. We’re not going to do it. The price is still too high.”
The programme to replace the aging Air Force One is in its early stages, and the service is still working to refine its “Acquisition Program Baseline” – the metrics needed to say how much the programme may cost.
Col Ryder said Boeing is now operating under an initial $172 million contract to work on “risk reduction activities”. The service expects to award contracts by June 30 for preliminary aircraft design and for the two unmodified 747-8 aircraft that will be adapted as Air Force One.
In January, the defence secretary James Mattis ordered a review of how to “substantially reduce the programme’s costs”.
The Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher said: “We are committed to working the Trump administration and defence department on innovative approaches to affordably provide the capabilities America’s military needs.”
* Bloomberg
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