A) Qatar had been trying to offload that plane for several years, so it needs maintenance work.
B) The plane sat under foreign control for a while after the transfer was announced, so every vital part of the plane needs to be checked for potential sabotage.
C) Qatar (and possibly other countries) have undoubtedly bugged every inch of that plane, so everything needs to be gone over with a comb, to find bugs.
D) It doesn’t have enough gold.
All of which means they have to disassemble and then reassemble the plane before they allow it into service, which is going to take quite a while and a lot of money.
But it was a great deal for Qatar! They got to offload a plane they’d been trying to get rid of, they avoided the sanctions list, and they get training on US fighter jets and a base in the US.
A) Qatar had been trying to offload that plane for several years, so it needs maintenance work.
B) The plane sat under foreign control for a while after the transfer was announced, so every vital part of the plane needs to be checked for potential sabotage.
C) Qatar (and possibly other countries) have undoubtedly bugged every inch of that plane, so everything needs to be gone over with a comb, to find bugs.
D) It doesn’t have enough gold.
All of which means they have to disassemble and then reassemble the plane before they allow it into service, which is going to take quite a while and a lot of money.
But it was a great deal for Qatar! They got to offload a plane they’d been trying to get rid of, they avoided the sanctions list, and they get training on US fighter jets and a base in the US.
All the better to fly all of Trumps cronies.