Boeing’s Air Force One program caused the defense company to lose $280 million in the second quarter of 2026, according to earnings the contractor released Tuesday.
The contractor has faced setbacks in delivering two Air Force One aircraft for presidential use by its initial projected timeline due to a lack of properly cleared workers and supply chain issues, causing President Donald Trump to use a Qatari-donated jet in the interim.
Trump first traveled with the modified Qatari aircraft in early July, but just a couple weeks later, revealed that it would be “maxed out” for upgrades since the plane lacks necessary security features, like missile-defense capabilities, for a presidential aircraft.
The absence of the security features caused Trump to instead fly with an older Air Force One out of Turkey after the recent NATO Summit as tensions escalated with Iran.
Plans for the new Boeing VC-25Bs have been in effect for about a decade and were originally slated for 2024, but are now expected in 2028.
The contract was signed in 2018 with a fixed $3.9 billion price tag, but the delays have cost Boeing billions of dollars extra as the company rushes to deliver the jets to the executive airlift fleet alongside the VC-25A and C-32 fleets.
The company attributes the $280 million in second quarter losses on the VC-25B program to an investment in “additional production and certification resources,” per the earning report, but it still anticipates the first delivery to occur in 2028.
The added amount now has caused the entire project to cost over $3.1 billion, according to CNN reporting, but the contract’s ceiling has been altered to $4.5 billion to allow for other equipment.
Boeing’s total second quarter loss was $428 million, a stark increase from the $7 million loss reported in the first quarter.
Cristina Stassis is a reporter covering stories surrounding the defense industry, national security, military/veteran affairs and more. She previously worked as an editorial fellow for Defense News in 2024 where she assisted the newsroom in breaking news across Sightline Media Group.
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