What it costs
How much does AOG and rush aircraft detailing cost?
Urgent work costs more than the same work booked ahead, and the reason is plain: you are not buying cleaning, you are buying a crew that stops what it was doing and is at the aircraft inside your window. What you pay turns on how much notice you give, how many people it takes to finish in the time available, what condition the cabin is actually in, and whether the field will let a crew work the ramp at that hour. Those are the levers. Here is how each one moves.
Why there is no number on this page
Jet Refined quotes urgent work against a written scope, which is why no rush figure appears here. One request, a cabin reset before a passenger pickup, is a single technician for part of an afternoon on a light jet that was already clean, and most of a night for a full crew on a large-cabin aircraft after a catering spill went under the divan. Publish one number and it is wrong for nearly every aircraft it gets read against. Worse, it stops behaving like a quote and starts behaving like a ceiling, with the scope trimmed to fit it. A vendor who names a firm urgent price before asking what happened, where the aircraft sits and when it moves is guessing, and you meet that guess again on the invoice.
What actually moves the number
How much of the clock you are buying
The largest single lever is the gap between your call and the moment the aircraft has to be closed up. A cabin reset scoped across an afternoon and the same reset finished before a passenger car reaches the ramp are the same task list bought under different conditions. The shorter the window, the less of the work can run in sequence, and sequence is what keeps the hours down.
Mobilising a crew, not just buying more hours
Most of what separates an urgent job from a scheduled one is mobilisation. Calling a crew in means people who were off shift, a van reloaded for a job that was not on the schedule, and an airport reached across Atlanta traffic or after the field has gone quiet. That lands the same way whether the work itself turns out short or long, which is why an urgent job can read heavy against its size.
What actually happened in the cabin
A catering spill on a leather divan, a drink driven into carpet seams, hydraulic or fuel contamination tracked up the aisle, and a lavatory or biological event are four different jobs. The last two are remediation rather than cleaning: extraction, enzyme treatment, controlled drying, confirmation that nothing returns once the cabin warms at altitude, and waste handled properly. Spraying a deodoriser over it is faster and does not hold.
Chemistry has its own clock
You can add people to a job. You cannot make a leather cleaner dwell faster, carpet dry sooner, a solvent flash off early or a coating cure on demand. Where a step has a fixed time, the only way to compress the whole is to run steps in parallel: more technicians, more equipment on the stand, more supervision. Urgency is bought with crew, not with speed.
Aircraft size, and where the crew has to come from
A light jet cabin one technician could reset by morning becomes a pair, or a full crew, on a large-cabin aircraft with a galley, a lavatory, divans and carpet seams that trap everything. Size sets the hours; crew position sets the mobilisation. A tail at PDK, Georgia's busiest general aviation field, or at RYY is quick to reach. A field out toward the edge of our Georgia coverage puts a crew on the road and equipment staged before anyone touches the aircraft.
Ramp, hangar, and who will let you in at that hour
Work in a hangar with power, light and floor space runs faster than work on an open ramp under a wing at night. After-hours access depends on the FBO: badging, escort, whether a lift or ladder is available, where the van can park, and whether ramp lighting reaches the tail. Some fields will not permit certain work after a set hour, and the plan bends around that rather than arguing with it.
Everything else happening on the same turn
Fuel, catering, maintenance and crew all want the aircraft at once. A reset that shares the turn is slower than the same reset with the aircraft to ourselves, because part of it is waiting, moving equipment and staying out of the way. Where the schedule may move again, the surfaces a passenger sees first are done first, so the aircraft is presentable at any point we are stopped.
What the last vendor left behind
Urgent work often lands on top of someone else's. Swirl marks ground into a dark clear coat, dressing residue on plated metal, silicone carried onto the transparencies that smears in low sun, matted Alcantara, or leather wiped with a product that has sealed dirt into the grain. Putting that right under time pressure takes longer than doing the original job properly, and it is the most common reason an urgent scope grows after arrival.
What the work actually consists of
An urgent job starts with a straight answer on the phone about what fits the window, then a written scope before the van moves. The crew is sized to the deadline rather than to the task list, and arrives with its own power, lighting, water and waste handling, so nothing waits on what an FBO can lend at two in the morning. Work runs in parallel: cabin, flight deck and exterior touch points at once, dry or rinse-less methods where a wet wash would not dry in time, and leather, Alcantara, veneer lacquer, stone, plated metal and acrylic each treated as a separate problem with its own products. The aircraft is walked with whoever signs for it before we leave, and anything the window did not allow is written down rather than quietly skipped.
Questions to put to any vendor
Including us. If a vendor cannot answer these plainly, that tells you more than the number at the bottom of their quote.
- What is achievable in my window, and what will you not attempt? A vendor who agrees to everything has not thought about dwell, drying and cure times. The one who tells you plainly what will not fit is the one who has done this at night before.
- How many of your own people are coming, and have they worked this type? Urgency is bought with crew, so the answer tells you what you are actually paying for. Hands called in for one night are the usual source of damage nobody owns afterwards.
- Is the premium for mobilising the crew, or is it inside the work itself? Urgent quotes move. Knowing which part is the callout and which is the scope tells you in advance what a further delay, or a stand-down at the gate, does to the total.
- Can you send a certificate of insurance tonight, to the operator and the FBO? Anyone working an aircraft after hours should produce aviation-specific cover on demand. If it takes days to locate, they are not set up for AOG work and the FBO may turn them away at the ramp.
- Which products go on the leather, the Alcantara and the transparencies? Three different answers is the right answer. One answer means one product across all of it, which is how Alcantara mats and acrylic crazes.
- For contamination, what is the process and where does the waste go? You want extraction, enzyme treatment, controlled drying and documented disposal. If the answer is a deodoriser and an air mover, the smell returns once the cabin warms, usually with passengers aboard.
- What happens if it is not finished when the aircraft has to go? You want the priority order agreed in advance, and a written note of what was left, rather than discovering both at the airstair while the passengers are walking out.
Questions we get
- Why does rush work cost more than the same job booked ahead?
- Because you are buying the crew's availability, not extra cleaning. Calling people in after hours, loading a van for a job that was not on the schedule and reaching the airport at short notice all land the same way whether the work itself turns out short or long.
- Can you tell me before you arrive whether it fits my window?
- Yes, and we would rather say no on the phone. Give us the aircraft, the airport and the departure time and you get a straight answer about what is achievable. A rushed job that has to be redone before the next trip helps nobody.
- Is emergency contamination quoted like a rush cabin reset?
- No. Biological, fuel and hydraulic events are remediation rather than cleaning: extraction, enzyme treatment, controlled drying, confirmation that nothing returns once the cabin warms at altitude, and proper waste handling. The scope, the products and the crew are all different, so it is quoted separately.
- Does it cost more at an airport away from Atlanta?
- Usually. Mobilisation is drive time, staging and access, not cleaning. A tail at PDK, RYY, FTY or LZU is quick to reach. A field out toward the edge of our Georgia coverage means a crew on the road and equipment staged before anyone touches the aircraft, and that shows in the quote.
- What if my departure moves again after you have been called out?
- Tell us as early as you can. If the crew has not rolled, the callout stands down cleanly. Once we are on the ramp the mobilisation has been spent, so we would rather put that time into the aircraft and finish the highest-visibility surfaces than stand around.
- Do you work around the fuel truck and catering?
- That is the normal condition of a rush turn. We work alongside fuel, catering, maintenance and flight crew without adding coordination load, and if the schedule moves again we prioritise the surfaces a passenger sees first, so the aircraft is presentable whenever we are stopped.
Send the tail number, the airport and the FBO or hangar, the aircraft type, what happened, and the time it has to be closed up. Photographs help but are not required. Urgent requests route straight to dispatch rather than into a queue, and you get a straight answer on what fits your window before anyone commits to it.
Request service
Get a number against your actual aircraft
Tail, airport, aircraft type and your deadline. That is enough for a written quote against a written scope.
Urgent or AOG? Call dispatch on (770) 999-9740 — faster than any form.
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