Part of the true story is that most of the other carriers didn't want to perform the fuel inerting retrofit that the FAA mandated to be completely done by the end of 2017. This was the end result of the TWA800 explosion back in 1996 which was believed to have been caused by ignition in the fuel tanks.
That's (not-coincidentally) the date United and Delta retired their 747s with a big publicity splash which let them avoid the real question of why they were flying their craft without fuel interting systems right up until the day before it was mandated.
> Also, some have posited that buying aircraft that were already built to standard airline specifications may end up actually costing more to convert them into VC-25Bs compared to just ordering new aircraft as some modifications and provisions for certain unique systems, electromagnetic hardening, and wiring could not have been made on the production line and now they need to be retrofitted. Considering that a brand new 747-8i costs roughly $400M, the aircraft themselves were never a massive part of the overall program's cost.
It is amazing to me that the planes are under a fifth of the cost of the project: over $5 billion. This project is more expensive than the stupidly (expensive, 2x over budget) WTC Path Station!
