A Plea from Air Force One

Mr. President-Elect, please don’t make me do this.

You may not know this, but I turned 29 this year. President Ronald Reagan commissioned me and Nancy Reagan designed my interior. I’ve been serving as a mobile command center since the George H.W. Bush administration.

It’s okay, I don’t expect a card or anything. It’s been an incredible honor for me just to serve four US Presidents and to travel every part of the globe with each of them.

But I’m getting old. And I’ve seen what you do to planes.

So I hope you’ll understand my trepidation when I learned you had tweeted the following:

Look, a lot of history has happened inside of me. I was the only plane allowed in the air after the morning of September 11, 2001. I transported President Reagan’s body to his state funeral. I once took Barack Obama and David Cameron to a basketball game. I flew to Havana, Cuba for the first presidential visit in over 50 years.

My replacement won’t be ready for at least a couple of years, so you’ll be flying on me, too. And I look forward to it. I really do. But don’t you think it’s time?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still the baddest plane out there. I’ve got a conference room, offices, an infirmary, mid-air refueling capabilities, anti-aircraft missiles, electromagnetic pulse counter-measures — and that’s just what I can say publicly.

But when you’ve been on top of this game for as long as I have, you know when it’s time to taxi aside and let a new plane take over.

After all, word around the hangar is Chinese President Xi Jinping is building an even bigger plane. You don’t want China to laugh at us, do you?