Chandigarh: Among the Indian Air Force’s (IAF’s) many unresolved capability gaps – most visibly its much-publicised collapse in combat squadron numbers – none is as quietly consequential, or as persistently neglected, as the chronic shortage of mid-air refuellers.Unlike fighters, submarines, or other more visible forms of military materiel and platforms, refuelling aircraft – formally designated as multi-role tanker transports (MRTTs) – rarely attract political attention or sustained public scrutiny. Yet these refuellers remain indispensable force multipliers, without which even the most advanced fighters cannot fully exploit their strike range, endurance, or operational flexibility.This MRTT shortfall directly and adversely impacts the IAF’s frontline fighters – Su-30MKIs, Rafales, Mirage-2000Hs, and MiG-29UPGs – which derive much of their strategic value from the ability to loiter, conduct long-range strikes, and rapidly redeploy between theatres. Without sufficient refuelling support, these fighter platforms are forced to operate closer to their bases, limiting their reach, severely compressing their commanders’ deployment options during crises, and further highlighting that MRTTs are as critical in conflict as the shooters themselves.But recognition of the MRTT’s strategic necessity has not translated into results: the IAF’s mid-air refuelling capability – undermined by the limited availability and questionable serviceability of its existing legacy Soviet-era Ilyushin IL-78 tanker fleet – has remained progressively inadequate for nearly three decades.This critical operational lacuna has persisted across successive governments, multiple procurement resets, and repeated formal reviews, exposing the chronic inability of both the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the IAF to turn urgent platform requirements into operationally effective capability.And though the IAF had consistently and formally pressed the MoD for its MRTT requirement over many years, progress on this front had more or less come to a halt, trapped by the ministry’s chronic procedural inertia, with acquisition seldom advancing beyond intermittent discussion within narrow military planning circles.This institutional deafness was further underscored in December 2024, when the government chose to institute yet another MoD committee – this time with an open-ended mandate and no fixed deadline – under Defence Secretary R. K. Singh to “examine” the IAF’s steadily collapsing combat squadron strength, now reduced to 29-30 squadrons against a sanctioned 42.5, and to recommend measures to reverse the decline.Also read: Why the Govt’s Approval for 114 French Dassault Rafales Raises QuestionsAdditionally, the committee was also tasked with “examining” the shortfall in aerial refueller and airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft in the context of a collusive China–Pakistan threat, even though all these collective deficiencies had long been acknowledged, repeatedly documented, and formally flagged by the service itself – rendering further examination redundant at a moment when decisive and instant procurement action was the only long overdue solution.That such a committee was deemed necessary at all further underscored the institutional bankruptcy of the procurement system: the shortage of fighters, MRTTs, and AEW&C platforms was neither a new problem nor poorly understood – it was a long-established reality, officially acknowledged and repeatedly flagged by the IAF, military planners, analysts, and the media.The committee, which included air marshal Tejinder Singh, the Deputy Chief of Air Staff responsible for acquisitions, Defence Research and Development Organisation chief Samir Kamat, and Defence Production secretary Sanjeev Kumar, was ironically tasked with deliberating on already evident conclusions. It was merely focusing on the obvious, substituting bureaucratic process for decision-making at a moment when immediate and swift action was unmistakably required to not only acquire additional fighters but also MRTTs to sustain them operationally.A former MoD official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said convening yet another high-level committee to reconfirm what was already exhaustively known was less analysis than ritual, intended to defer decision-making. He likened its creation to appointing a commission to determine whether India had attained Independence in 1947, or even more ridiculously, whether the Earth was round, centuries after it had been proven to be so.“What was badly needed was political direction and procurement resolve, not further validation of settled facts by yet another committee,” he said. Burying an issue demanding immediate action in procedure, the government and MoD had signalled that even clear military requirements could be delayed indefinitely, thereby weakening national air power in the process, he added.Industry sources also noted that even last week’s MoD approval to acquire 114 Dassault Rafale fighters under the long-delayed Multi-Role Advanced Fighter (MRAF) programme had reportedly been ‘rammed through’ only after sustained IAF insistence, rather than emerging from the ministry’s institutional momentum via its committee.However, by contrast, the crisis surrounding India’s aerial refuellers remains unresolved, even though the MoD special committee was specifically tasked with examining the shortfall. It reportedly did not refer to refuelling capabilities even in passing, leaving the tanker gap unaddressed and the IAF’s operational reach consequently constrained.Over the past two decades, various abortive steps have been initiated to supplement and eventually replace the IAF’s fleet of six Il-78 ‘Midas’ MRTT, acquired in 2004, which have consistently recorded abysmally low serviceability, as repeatedly recorded by several government watchdog and parliamentary defence panels.At the time of their acquisition, these Il-78s were intended as an initial tranche, to be augmented further by additional advanced tankers. Over the past two decades, the IAF has twice attempted to acquire more modern MRTTs, but both efforts ultimately failed.The first attempt in 2009 led to the shortlisting of the European Airbus Defence and Space A330 MRTT following technical and commercial evaluation against other platforms, including upgraded Il-78s, but was scrapped in early 2010 due to financial and bureaucratic concerns.A second attempt followed three years later, in late 2012, in which, once again, the A330 MRTT emerged as the preferred choice, after extensive user trials in India and operational evaluations, including compatibility with IAF fighters and high-altitude performance. Despite this, negotiations dragged on for several years before being terminated in 2016, due primarily to unresolved pricing and sundry procurement policy issues.However, recognising the IAF’s urgency to plug this mid-air refuelling shortfall, the MoD, in early 2021, entered into government-to-government (G2G) negotiations with France to lease a single Airbus A330 MRTT as a test case, under the Defence Acquisition Procedure-2020, which had only recently sanctioned such contractual arrangements.If successful, it was to be followed by leasing five similar tankers in an arrangement that was envisaged as a ‘pragmatic stopgap’, bridging the IAF’s urgent refuelling shortfall, until an MRTT acquisition could be concluded. Yet, even this modest lease plan collapsed, suffocated by the same inter-ministerial caution and procedural inertia that had derailed the two previous outright procurement endeavours.Also read: Why the Air Force Is Turning Back to the Rafale – and Why It’s CostlyThe failure to exercise the leasing option was especially revealing: it required none of the structural commitments – offsets, large capital outlays, or long-term industrial promises – that often stall military platform purchases. All it demanded was administrative will, yet even this proved elusive, exposing a procurement system so mired in process and bureaucracy that it could not deliver even its lowest-risk solution to address a critical operational limitation for the IAF.Hence, by the mid-2020s, as the security situation in India’s neighbourhood steadily deteriorated, the IAF remained dependent on its obsolete and under-available Il-78 MRTTs, even as its newly inducted 4.5-generation combat aircraft – like the Rafale – was reliant on aerial refuelling to exploit its full operational envelope.“The prolonged failure to close the gap between fighters and refuellers underscores a deeper pattern in India’s defence procurement – one where headline combat platforms are acknowledged and prioritised, while essential key enablers are repeatedly deferred,” said a two-star IAF veteran associated with the MRTT induction whilst in service. The outcome, he added, declining to be named, is a system in which critical force multipliers remain perpetually out of reach of the IAF, preventing it from employing its combat assets optimally.Meanwhile, unlike the IAF, both the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) had made steady progress in modernising their own refuelling capabilities. While neither matched Western air forces in this regard, both had treated MRTTs as a core operational enabler, rather than an optional adjunct.The PAF operates a modest, but operationally integrated, refuelling fleet centred on four Ilyushin Il-78MPs – an upgraded version of the Il-78 in service with the IAF – featuring improved avionics, navigation systems, and limited structural enhancements. These aircraft were commissioned around late 2009, several years after the IAF inducted its own less modern Il-78s.These MRTTs are tightly integrated into the PAF’s operational planning, supporting extended-range missions by its F-16 and JF-17 fighters. Given Pakistan’s smaller geographic depth and operational area compared with India’s vast expanse, a handful of refuellers is sufficient to enhance the PAF’s sortie endurance, flexibility, and survivability – particularly during crisis deployments like last year’s Operation Sindoor.The PLAAF, on the other hand, has invested heavily in scaling up its MRTT force.According to open source assessments, the PLAAF operates 30–35 MRTTs, including 15–17 modern YY-20 tanker variants based on the Xian Y-20 transport aircraft airframe, in addition to older H-6U converted bombers and a limited number of Il-78 tankers. While exact numbers remain opaque, the trend is clear: the PLAAF has built a steadily expanding and increasingly modern MRTT force to sustain its growing expeditionary posture and multi-theatre ambitions across the Western Pacific, the South China Sea, and increasingly on the Tibetan plateau, against India.“Even as the MoD and IAF continue to debate these acknowledged and obvious MRTT shortages, both these adversaries have internalised aerial refuelling as indispensable to modern air warfare and converted that understanding into operational capability,” said the earlier-mentioned IAF officer. For the IAF, he added, procurement bottlenecks within the MoD remain the key constraint, preventing even low-risk solutions from reaching the frontline.Other fighter-pilot veterans maintained that this MRTT gap reflected a deeper systemic flaw in Indian defence planning – a preference for high-profile platforms at the expense of invisible but decisive enablers. And, until that bias changed, they said, the IAF would continue to field a 21st-century combat fleet with 20th-century reach.Moreover, in a region marked by escalating hostility, rapidly expanding Chinese and Pakistani air power, and declining IAF combat squadrons, this lack of MRTTs was not merely inefficient mismanagement and apathy, but a grave strategic vulnerability.