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A C-17 onloads equipment during a July 2025 exercise.
AURORA, Colorado—The U.S. Air Force needs to press forward on modernizing its airlift fleet after being too slow on progress to replace its C-17 and C-5 fleet, a top official argues.
Lt. Gen. Reba Sonkiss, interim commander of the service’s Air Mobility Command (AMC), told reporters Feb. 24 that strategic airlift has not been enough of a priority for modernization.
“We must pay attention to that strategic capability, and we’re again woefully behind on the modernization front for our strategic air forces,” Sonkiss said at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Warfare Symposium here.
AMC’s strategic airlift fleet includes the two heavy lifters, which are aging while also in high demand. The Lockheed Martin C-5M is “a critical tool in that toolkit, and we have to retain it,” Sonkiss says. That said, the C-5M faces readiness challenges to the point where it does not perform at the level the service would like.
“It is an old airplane,” she says. “We have to get after what next looks like. We can’t wait until we’re shoveling it into the boneyard before we get to that discussion.”
The Boeing C-17 is the backbone of strategic airlift, with the aircraft repeatedly called on to surge to meet demands. Dozens of the aircraft have currently been airlifting equipment and personnel to locations across the Middle East amid tensions with Iran.
“It’s done more than we ever planned for when we bought that airplane, and it has performed flawlessly,” she says. “But it’s getting old too. I cannot have a gap in my strategic airlift forces.”
The discussion to modernize cannot happen soon enough. The plan focuses on what is called the Next Generation Airlift (NGAL), which could be a series of aircraft of different sizes to meet different needs. That work is in the early stages.
The Air Force in November 2025 laid out its current schedule for NGAL, with an analysis of alternatives set to begin in 2027. The first aircraft could be produced as early as fiscal 2038, with initial operational capability planned in fiscal 2041. The schedule states that C-5Ms will be viable until 2046 and C-17s through 2075.
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