Boeing 737 on the field in Renton, Washington.
Leslie Josephs | CNBC
President Donald Trump has expressed his frustration in recent days on the long waiting of a pair of Boeing 747 which will serve new Air Force One planes.
Jets are late. Trump has negotiated the $ 4 billion contract for the plane during his first mandate, and it is not clear if they will be ready in his current. Cost surpassions have totaled more than $ 2 billion to date.
Trump advisor Elon Musk works with Boeing in the hope of delivering the plane more quickly, the manufacturer’s general manager Kelly Ortberg, reiterated Thursday.
“The president is clearly not satisfied with the delivery calendar. I think he is well known,” Ortberg said at a Barclays Industrials conference. “Elon Musk helps us a lot to work through the requirements … to help us get things that are constraints not added away so that we can move more quickly and have the president delivered these planes.”
Ortberg called Musk, CEO of SpaceX, which competes with the defense and the spatial unit of Boeing, a “brilliant guy” who can “quickly check the difference between the technical requirements and the things that we can keep away”.
On board one of the current 747 presidential elections, Trump told journalists on Wednesday that he was considering alternatives.
“We can buy an airplane or get an airplane, or something,” he said, according to Reuters. Trump visited a 747 which was parked at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida this weekend, the point of sale reported.
The first lady Melania Trump laughs by watching the American president Donald Trump cut with a saber in a representation of cake of the new design of the Air Force One during the inaugural ball of the commander at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty images
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Frustration is nothing new for customers of Boeing airlines who have been faced with long delays for planes when the post-pandemic travel boom set up. An explosion of an almost catastrophic hand holder in January 2024 further slowed Boeing deliveries and caused a change in leadership.
Now some customers become more optimistic. The leaders told CNBC that it seems that the manufacturer had filmed a corner under Ortberg, who took the bar in August.
“Boeing is doing a miraculous work to turn around and become more reliable as a supplier,” said the director of United Airlines on Wednesday, Mike Leskinen at the same Barclays conference. “Our confidence that our maximum plane will be delivered on time has never been greater to my mandate at United Airlines.”
Bob Jordan, CEO of All-Boeing 737 Carrier Southwest Airlinessaid during a call for results on January 30: “Although they still have a lot of work to do, they seem to be on a good path, and we feel more optimistic.”
Speaking at the Barclays conference on Thursday, Ortberg de Boeing said he saw no supply chain problem that would prevent the manufacturer from moving the production of his cash-cow 737 Max aircraft, his bestseller, at 38 per month in the coming months.