Hillary Clinton, after almost 17 months of campaigning, began flying with her campaign press corps Monday, boarding a newly campaign-branded Boeing 737 for the final sprint to Election Day.
Clinton boarded the plane at Westchester County Airport on Monday morning, headed for a series Labor Day events in Ohio and Illinois.
Clinton’s plane — which has previously flown for Air Berlin, OrenAir & Corendon Dutch Airlines — was contracted by the campaign in the last month and is wrapped in Clinton’s blue “H” logo and “Stronger Together,” her general election campaign slogan.
Clinton’s campaign aides said the plane was built in the United States and all modifications were done in Roswell, New Mexico and Amarillo, Texas.
Both Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump had declined to get a plane big enough to fit traveling reporters for much of the campaign, instead opting to fly private and on their own.
Trump continues to fly on his own plane, which was on the ground at the Cleveland airport where Clinton landed Monday afternoon.
The former secretary of state, who has been markedly press averse for much of her campaign, joked with reporters on board that she had “been just waiting for this moment.”
“I will come back and talk to you more formally but I wanted to welcome you onto the plane,” Clinton said.
A joint campaign-press plane is a symbolic step in a campaign that marks a time of more access to the candidate.
Clinton and her top aides sit in the front quarter of the plane, followed by advance and communications staff, and then Secret Service detail travels in the middle of the plane. Clinton’s press corps sits on the back of the aircraft. Forty two seats are available to reporters.
As Clinton boarded the plane, she was presented with a replica of the jet.
Looking up at the plane, she added, “Looks good, doesn’t it?”