… while many have speculated that the Qataris have offered Trump the luxurious plane to curry favor with the famously transactional president, there may be a simpler rationale: they just don’t want it anymore.

The royals have failed to sell the plane, which was put on the market in 2020, according to an archived cop listing. Giving it away could save Qatar’s rulers a big chunk of change on maintenance and storage costs, aviation experts told Forbes. Making Trump happy would be an added bonus.

Qatar, which has given away another blinged-out 747 and may have mothballed two more, epitomizes the fading demand for these huge, fuel-guzzling, highly personalised airplanes. There aren’t many who want to buy them, and many of the governments and royal families who own them have been trying to ditch them over the past decade.

“Qatar, like many modern states, is shifting toward leaner, more versatile aircraft, which offer better economics and more discreet presence for official travel,” Linus Bauer, managing director of Dubai-based Bauer Aviation Advisory, told Forbes. Giving the plane to Trump would be “a creative disposal strategy” that marks “a farewell to a bygone model of geopolitical theater in the skies.”