Trump asks to cancel order on Air Force One

“Some of the statistics that have been cited [by Trump], shall we say, don’t appear to reflect the nature of the financial agreement between Boeing and the Department of Defense”, Earnest stated on Tuesday. The US presidential pay package is $400,000 a year.

“This is the wrong place to talk about cost control”, Aboulafia said.

Boeing – that it shouldn’t be bilking the Air Force on a project just because it’s a high profile job that involves a lot of very special expertise, materials and technology.

The new plane “will be a four-engine wide-body, commercial derivative aircraft, uniquely modified to provide the president, staff and guests with safe and reliable air transportation with the equivalent level of security and communications capability available in the White House”, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

Any plane the president is on is called Air Force One. “I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number”, he told reporters.

Either way, Trump is sending a message that these companies will pay a price, and that price is a better deal on a plane, tank or jet engine.

President-elect Donald Trump, who is accustomed to flying in his own Boeing 757, isn’t as enamored with Boeing’s contract to build a new generation of Air Force One planes.

The Boeing 747-200s have a range of 12,550km, however, they’re capable of refuelling midair and can stay in the air indefinitely.

Trump’s remarks came after the Chicago Tribune published a column early on Tuesday in which Boeing chief executive Dennis Muilenburg suggested the president-elect roll back his anti-trade rhetoric.

“To me, that says maybe we shouldn’t be paying as much for the defense contractors”.

There are quarters for senior aides, Secret Service officers and guests, as well as an office that doubles as a medical suite and operating room, for use by the plane’s doctor.

President-elect Donald Trump has described the current conflict in Libya as a complete disaster despite US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation intervention to oust former-leader Muammar Gaddafi. The group will meet at the White House in February.

The Air Force said in a statement that it had budgeted $2.7 billion in the coming year for the initial stage of the project involving research, development, testing and evaluation.

Under the deal, the Air Force would buy the 747-8 aircraft, a newer version of those now in use as Air Force One.

Those stock holdings, ethics advisers said, offered a potentially troublesome facet of Trump’s private finances that could entangle his public decision-making.

In January, Boeing secured a contract from the Pentagon to start development work on the 747-8 craft to replace the aging planes.

“Air Force One has unique mission requirements, including possibly having to operate in a nuclear war”, Thompson said.

He later told reporters plans for the plane are “totally out of control”, claiming $4 billion would be spent on them, according to CNN. Boeing was the sole builder to bid on the planes, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Boeing will eventually also get the contract to make the planes – if Trump doesn’t nix the deal.