US President Donald Trump has taken his first flight on a new Air Force One, a Boeing 747-8 donated to him by Qatar.
Shortly before boarding a flight to North Dakota on Wednesday, Mr Trump said: “This will be the first flight of what I think will be the best commercial plane ever built.”
The aircraft will serve as a temporary Air Force One while two new jumbo jets that are running behind schedule are completed.
He said Qatar “treated us very well” and that the officials who gave the plane to the White House were “very nice”.
Previously, he said the plane was a gift and had batted down any ethical or national security concerns about accepting a plane from a foreign government.
The US Constitution prohibits government officials from accepting gifts “from any king, prince or foreign state” in a section known as the Emoluments Clause.
“I went to Qatar and said 'I'd like to use it for a period of time' because the other planes are under construction and won't be here for two years,” he said. “The Emir wanted to make a contribution to the US.”
The President's inaugural flight on the plane departed Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and was scheduled to land in Medora, North Dakota, where Mr Trump was attending a museum library dedication to former US president Theodore Roosevelt.
Mr Trump ordered a repaint of the new plane, replacing the famous baby blue of the old Air Force One with a red, white, dark blue and gold design.
Mr Trump regularly complained that the old Air Force One jets were too small. The highly customised Boeing 747-200B series planes first took to the air in 1987.
The model was introduced in 1971, and none have been manufactured since 1991. Spare parts are no longer made, and the US Air Force is said to have trouble procuring custom replacements.
The highly confidential security features on board presidential planes compound the difficulty of replacing the planes. Boeing has revised the delivery date of its Air Force One replacements to 2027 or 2028.
Air Force One is estimated to cost around $175,000 per flight hour, and the President travels with an entourage of about 1,000 people.
