BERLIN, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- The German air force will receive three new aircraft for the transport of German ministers and governmental representatives, German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen announced on Friday.

The new aircraft have already been ordered, added von der Leyen.

The "general willingness" to buy the new planes would have already been established in the German governmental cabinet and many efforts would be made to acquire the new planes, said von der Leyen.

According to reports by the German magazine Spiegel, the government plans to invest about 150 million euros (171.9 million U.S. dollars) per airplane.

The minister's announcement follows a series of failures of the German government's long-haul aircraft fleet.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's delay to the G20 summit in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires due to an electrical defect in her aircraft attracted international attention. Merkel flew by scheduled flight to the meeting of the 20 most important industrial and emerging countries in the world.

Several other German politicians were struck by failures of governmental airplanes as well.

On Wednesday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier's flight from Ethiopia was delayed due to problems with the compressed air system of his governmental aircraft.

Finance Minister Olaf Scholz had to take a scheduled flight as well from Bali to Germany after rodents had infested his aircraft last October.

German development minister Robert Mueller, who was stranded in Zambia in January due to a technical problem with a governmental aircraft, feared an "enormously negative symbolic effect for high-tech country Germany" due to the repeated failures of German government aircraft. Enditem

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