There Are Three Air Force One Jets Right Now. Two Are 747s From 1990 and 1991, and the Third Was a Gift From Qatar

For 35 years, the answer was two. As of October 2026, three Boeing 747s fly the president as Air Force One: the two VC-25As, tail numbers 28000 and 29000, and the Qatar-donated 747-8 the Air Force calls the VC-25B Bridge.

That count comes from the Air Force, which said in June 2026 that both VC-25As stay in the fleet alongside the new jet, and from ABC News reporting on October 2 that the president flew both the old and the new jet through September. Two more 747-8s, the real VC-25Bs, are still being converted by Boeing.

How Many Air Force Ones Are There?

Three aircraft regularly carry the president under the call sign Air Force One in October 2026. Two are VC-25As, 747-200Bs that entered service in 1990 and 1991, and one is the VC-25B Bridge, a 2012 Boeing 747-8 that entered presidential service on July 1, 2026.

Count every 747 the Air Force has bought for the mission and the number is seven. Two VC-25Bs are being converted by Boeing, and two ex-Lufthansa 747-8s were bought for crew training and spare parts. None of those four has carried a president.

Strictly, Air Force One is a radio call sign, not an airplane. The Air Force’s own fact sheet says it applies when the president is aboard either VC-25A or any Air Force aircraft, which is why a smaller jet can become Air Force One for a day.

The Presidential 747 Fleet, Airframe by Airframe

The two VC-25As do most of the work. Both carry the EMP shielding and defensive systems the Bridge lacks, and on international trips the second one often flies along as a backup.

Each VC-25A carries up to 71 passengers and a crew of 30, flies 7,800 statute miles (12,550 km) without refueling and can refuel in flight. Both are operated by the Presidential Airlift Group at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, whose crews are covered in who pilots Air Force One. The full specifications are on our Air Force One aircraft page.

The Bridge is the odd one out. It is a former Qatar Amiri Flight VIP jet, accepted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on May 21, 2025, and converted by L3Harris, which added mission communications but not the full VC-25A defensive suite.

It also wears a new red, white and blue livery instead of the familiar pale blue scheme, which has a history of its own: why Air Force One is blue.

Why the Numbers Differ

Different pages give different counts. Most are out of date, and the rest are counting different things.

Two is the answer on the Air Force fact sheet, the archived Trump White House page and most of the search results. It was true from 1991 until July 1, 2026, and the fact sheet still lists an inventory of two VC-25As.

Four or five comes from adding the two VC-25Bs on order to the VC-25As, with or without the Bridge. Those aircraft exist as airframes, but they cannot carry a president until Boeing finishes and the Air Force accepts them.

Seven counts every presidential 747, including the two ex-Lufthansa jets the Air Force bought for about $400 million to train crews and supply parts. The Air Force says they are additional to the VC-25B program, not presidential transports.

The other common mix-up is the smaller jets. The C-32A, a militarized Boeing 757, normally carries the vice president and becomes Air Force One whenever the president boards it. Our Air Force One vs Air Force Two comparison explains how the call signs work.

Why There Are Three, and When That Changes

The third jet exists because the replacements are late. Boeing signed a fixed-price deal worth about $3.9 billion in 2018 to convert two 747-8s, originally built for a Russian airline and never delivered, into VC-25Bs by December 2024.

That date has slipped by more than three years. Boeing still expects the first delivery in 2028, with the second following in 2029, and its charges on the program now total more than $3 billion.

The Bridge has its own limits. The New York Times reported in July 2026 that it lacked anti-missile systems the VC-25As carry, and the president switched planes to leave the NATO summit in Turkey that month. Our story on the Qatar-gifted 747’s first months as Air Force One covers that night.

Trump said in September that the jet would go away in October for about 60 days of security work. ABC News reported on October 2 that it was in for cosmetic interior upgrades, and the White House has not said when the security work starts.

The count will move again. Under the legal arrangement around the gift, the Bridge is expected to pass to the Trump presidential library foundation before the end of his term, and the VC-25As are being kept flying until the VC-25Bs are fielded. If Boeing holds its schedule, the count changes again in 2028 and 2029.