The $400M Boeing 747 gifted to the US by Qatar that's now the new Air Force One is so big that airports are spending millions changing runways so it can land

There appears to be a slight problem with the famous Boeing 747 VC-25B Bridge Air Force One gifted to the US by Qatar.

The plane is ready and good to go, but it’s too large.

Apparently, so many runways in the world won’t be able to accomodate it.

And there’s a technical reason why.

Several airports might have to build a runway for it

The retrofitted Boeing 747-8 was rushed into service to bypass delays on Boeing’s permanent fleet replacements.

But apparently it’s too big.

This is going to be an expensive problem that a few airports will have to fix.

In theory, all countries with which the US has diplomatic relations will be encouraged to adapt at least one of their airports.

In practice, this is probably going to happen gradually, and they’ll probably start with the airports in countries the US President travels to more often.

We don’t see Cape Verde or Sint Maarten rebuilding their runways any time soon.

This is why the Boeing is too big

The fact that the new Air Force One is larger came as a surprise to most people because both this new one and the old one are Boeing 747s.

But they’re actually different.

The old plane was sa 747-400, while the new is a 747-8.

They’re roughly the same length and height, but the 747-8 has a much larger wingspan, and it weighs more.

The 747-8 pushes the aircraft into the highest airport design category, ICAO Code F.

The vast majority of the world’s major airports were built to the smaller Code E standard.

LaGuardia Aiport in New York and Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washingon, for example, can’t accomodate Boeing 747-8.

Although we can be certain that, at least when it comes to these two, that’ll change soon.