WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump headed to Washington on Saturday ahead of his inauguration on a U.S. military airplane supplied by U.S. President Joe Biden, as the outgoing president emphasized sticking with traditional transition norms.
Trump will arrive in Washington on Saturday evening for celebrations to mark his return to office on Monday.
For the occasion, he is ditching his navy and crimson “Trump Force One” he often flies in favor of a government plane Biden sent to Florida. Biden has stressed to his officials that they must work with Trump’s transition team, a sharp contrast to the last transition when Trump refused to attend the inauguration or acknowledge Biden’s win.
Both planes sat on the tarmac at Palm Beach International Airport before Trump’s departure Saturday. Trump’s son Eric and Eric’s wife Lara boarded the private plane.
For his less than three-hour flight to Washington Dulles International Airport, Trump will fly aboard a specially configured Boeing 757-200 in trademark blue and white colors and bearing the words “United States of America.”
His daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner were spotted boarding that aircraft Saturday afternoon.
It is the same model aircraft that’s called Air Force Two when flown by the vice president but is also used by the first lady, cabinet members and other high-ranking officials.
It is the norm for presidents-elect to take such a government-provided plane to their inauguration, though Biden did not.
In 2021, Biden had planned to arrive by train but the plan was canceled after the Secret Service raised security concerns after thousands of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a bid to overturn his election defeat.
The Trump administration offered no plane and Biden ended up taking a private jet to Washington, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Photographs from Trump’s 2017 arrival in the Washington area to take office for his first term showed that he used a similar U.S. aircraft then.
The White House and the U.S. Air Force could not immediately be reached for comment.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne, Trevor Hunnicutt and David Shepardson; Editing by Heather Timmons and Deepa Babington)
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