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(Reuters) -The U.S. government has commissioned defense contractor L3Harris Technologies to overhaul a Boeing 747 formerly used by the Qatari government to use as an interim Air Force One, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
President Donald Trump, frustrated by the delays on Boeing’s Air Force One, wants to have the plane available for use as early as the fall, the WSJ report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Boeing’s Air Force One program has been troubled by supply chain issues, high costs, and the complexity of the planes that are intended to be an airborne White House, pushing the delivery towards the end of Trump’s second presidential term.
The planemaker, beset with major controversies over the past few years, had indicated to federal officials around the November elections that the delivery would not be possible until around 2035, the report said, citing people familiar with the talks.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, while L3Harris declined to comment.
L3Harris has been a contractor to Boeing, working on communications systems for the pair of replacement Air Force Ones, the report said. The interim jet would serve alongside the current pair of ageing jets.
(Reporting by Sameer Manekar and Harshita Meenaktshi in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
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