U.S. May Buy 747s Once Set for Russia to Cut Air Force One Costs
- Air Force holding talks to buy Transaero jumbos, person says
- Trump criticized project’s ‘out of control’ costs last year
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President Donald Trump’s administration may be poised to strike a peculiar deal for the next Air Force One planes: buying jumbo jets abandoned by a defunct Russian airline.
The U.S. Air Force is in talks to purchase two 747-8 jetliners from Boeing Co. that were originally bound for Transaero Airlines, once Russia’s second-largest airline, said a person briefed on the talks. The carrier never signed for the humpbacked passenger jets before it dissolved in late 2015, and the aircraft have been in storage since rolling out of Boeing’s factory near Seattle earlier that year.