India’s interest in a high-performance light transport grew from its experience supplying posts in Ladakh and the north-east, where the An-12 and older types operated on the edge of their limits. The An-32 offered a payload of more than six tonnes, a ramp that let vehicles and supplies be loaded without ground equipment, and engines with enough power to lift that load from strips such as Leh and Thoise in summer heat. Deliveries began in 1984 and the type equipped several squadrons, flying air maintenance missions, paratroop training, casualty evacuation and VIP and logistic flights.

The aircraft became part of every Indian disaster relief effort, from earthquakes in Gujarat and Kashmir to floods in the north-east and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Its high-altitude work culminated in landings at Daulat Beg Oldi, Fukche and Nyoma in 2008, reopening advanced landing grounds that had not seen fixed-wing aircraft in years. Even after the arrival of the C-130J and C-17, the An-32 remained the numerical backbone of the Indian Air Force’s medium transport fleet, and plans in the 2020s called for further upgrades at Indian repair depots to keep roughly 100 aircraft flying.

In 2009 India signed a contract with Ukraine worth about USD 400 million to extend the life of its An-32 fleet and modernise it to An-32RE standard, with new avionics, improved navigation and communications equipment, upgraded crew seats and an extended service life. Under the plan the first 40 aircraft were to be upgraded in Ukraine and the rest at the Indian Air Force’s No. 1 Base Repair Depot in Kanpur, with Ukrainian kits and support.

The work proceeded, but Russia’s seizure of Crimea and the war in the Donbas from 2014 slowed supplies of parts from Ukrainian factories, and the full-scale invasion of 2022 disrupted the programme further. India responded by increasing domestic work on the fleet, including efforts to certify locally produced components. Reports in 2024 indicated plans to upgrade around 60 more aircraft by the end of the decade at Kanpur and Chandigarh. For a type designed in Kyiv and powered by engines from Zaporizhzhia, keeping the Indian fleet airworthy has become as much a diplomatic and industrial challenge as an engineering one.

• An-32: baseline military transport with AI-20M engines.
• An-32A: civil version, built in small numbers.
• An-32B: improved version with AI-20DM engines and better payload, the main production model.
• An-32B-100 / -110 / -120: modernised versions with payload raised to about 7.5 tonnes and revised avionics.
• An-32P Firekiller: firefighting version carrying about 8 tonnes of water or retardant in external tanks, dropped from 40–50 m at 240–260 km/h.
• An-32MP: maritime patrol version.
• An-32RE: India’s life-extended and modernised fleet standard.
• An-32B-300: proposed version with Rolls-Royce AE 2100 engines of 4,600 shp, not put into series production.

The variety reflects Antonov’s effort to sell the type to civil and military users after the Soviet market disappeared, and a number of aircraft were converted from one standard to another during their service lives. All production took place in Kyiv, and as large export orders dried up in the 2000s the line wound down, with the last new aircraft delivered around 2012.

The An-32’s defining feature, engines almost twice as powerful as the An-26’s, is also its main cost driver. The AI-20 family was designed in the 1950s for the An-10 and An-12 and burns considerably more fuel than modern turboprops of similar power. For operators flying from sea-level bases on routine logistics, that makes the An-32 more expensive to run than the An-26 or Western types such as the C-295; for those working in the Himalaya or at hot desert strips, the extra power is the reason to own one.

Maintenance costs have risen since 2014 because many spares, engines and overhaul services come from Ukraine, and supply chains have been disrupted twice. India’s response, shifting more work to its own base repair depots, is partly about cost and partly about security of supply. No operator publishes an hourly cost, so the range given in the table above is an estimate rather than a published rate.