What it costs
How much does aircraft carpet and leather restoration cost?
Carpet and leather restoration is quoted per cabin, because two aircraft of the same model rarely present the same problem. What you are paying for is hours spent on materials that each want a different chemistry: wool or nylon pile, aniline or pigmented hide, and Alcantara, which is damaged by the very product that feeds leather. Condition sets the hours. Access and deadline set the crew. What a previous vendor left behind sets the rest. Here is what actually moves the number, and how to read a quote once you have two of them.
Why there is no number on this page
Every cabin is quoted against a written scope, and the scope is the number. A published figure would have to stand for both the well-kept cabin that needs a thorough clean and the one whose leather has been fed for years and has to be stripped back before restoration can begin. Set it low and it is wrong for most aircraft; set it high and it is absurd for the rest. A published number also stops being a guide and becomes a ceiling, and scope gets trimmed to fit it. A quote built from a model name and a seat count, with nobody having looked at the cabin, is a guess. We look, then we write the scope down, then we quote it.
What actually moves the number
How much soft material is actually in there
Seat count is a poor proxy. A large-cabin aircraft with a divan, a crew rest and an aft lavatory carries far more carpet and far more hide than the seat map suggests, and the awkward areas take the hours: under the divan, the aisle at the pivot points, the galley threshold, the carpet that runs up under the seat rails. We scope the cabin in front of us, not the model.
What the leather actually is
Aniline hide carries no pigment layer over the dye, so it absorbs what is put on it and shows every correction. Pigmented leather tolerates a good deal more. Alcantara is not leather at all but a polyester and polyurethane textile, and leather conditioner mats its pile. A single cabin often carries all three within arm's reach, and that is three methods and three chemistries, not one.
Condition, which outweighs size
A neglected light-jet cabin routinely takes longer than a well-kept large-cabin one. Soil ground into the pile over years does not lift in a single pass; it comes out in stages with drying between them. Leather that has dried out at headrests and bolsters needs a slower route than leather that was simply dirty. This is the driver most people underestimate before anyone has looked at the aircraft.
What the previous vendor left behind
The most common surprise in this scope. Over-conditioned leather has to be stripped back before restoration can begin, which is a stage of work ahead of the actual work. Carpet extracted with more moisture going in than came out has soil sitting in the underlay waiting to wick back up. Both are visible in a walkthrough, and both belong in the scope rather than in a conversation halfway through the day.
Whether there is an odour, and where it lives
Tracing an odour is a separate job from cleaning one. Sources sit under seat rails, at the galley threshold, in the underlay, occasionally behind a sidewall panel. Finding one can mean lifting carpet sections and opening areas that are otherwise never touched. Where the source turns out to be the environmental system or an insulation blanket, we stop and tell you, because that is a maintenance item and not a cleaning one.
Whether the furnishings move
The carpet under seat tracks and beneath a divan holds the worst of it. Lifting carpet sections or moving furnishings is agreed with your maintenance provider in advance, not decided by a detailer on the day. If nothing moves, we work around it and write into the quote exactly which areas will not be reachable, so nobody discovers it at handover.
Hangar, ramp, and somewhere to stand
Extraction needs power, water and room to stage equipment and let carpet dry. A hangar gives all three and takes the weather out of the schedule. An open ramp through a Georgia summer does not: humidity extends drying, heat works against you, and at a field as busy as PDK, the second busiest general aviation airport in the United States, staging space is negotiated rather than assumed.
The deadline
A compressed window does not mean less work, it means more crew, and on this scope it can also mean a different method. Drying is the one thing that will not compress. If the aircraft departs in the morning, a lower-moisture approach may be the only responsible option, which changes both what can be achieved and what it takes to get there.
What the work actually consists of
Assessment first. Every material identified and tested in an unseen area: pigmented or aniline hide, Alcantara, wool or nylon pile, and the veneer lacquer next to all of it. Then dry soil removal, because extracting over grit grinds it into the pile. Carpet is worked in sections with recovery kept ahead of injection, so the underlay stays dry enough for the structure beneath it. Leather is cleaned, allowed to dry, then conditioned back to its original sheen and stopped there. Alcantara gets a textile method, never a leather one. Seat tracks, rails, pockets and the carpet under the divan are done rather than vacuumed around. A midsize cabin is usually a crew-day; a large cabin with a lavatory and crew rest is longer, with drying built into the schedule rather than added at the end.
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.
- Which leather is in my cabin, and how did you identify it? Aniline, pigmented hide and Alcantara want three different methods and three different products. A vendor answering from the model name rather than from the seat in front of them has not looked, and matted Alcantara does not brush back out.
- How do you control moisture, and how long will the carpet need before the aircraft flies? In an aircraft, recovery matters more than injection, because moisture in the underlay sits against floor structure. A vendor without a straight answer on drying time is planning to over-wet it and hand it back looking fine.
- What will you do about the over-conditioning the previous vendor left? If there is a film on the leather, stripping it is a stage before restoration starts. A quote that does not mention it has either not seen it or intends to condition on top of it, which is how the film gets thicker.
- Where does your scope stop, and what would you send to a trim shop? Restoration cleans, corrects and conditions what is already there. It does not re-dye, re-stitch or re-upholster. Cracked or dye-worn leather is a trim shop's work, so a quote promising it back to new is describing a job a detailer does not perform.
- Are you moving seats and lifting carpet, or working around them? It is the difference between a cleaned cabin and a restored one, and it changes who else has to be involved. Ask before the day, because a vendor who intends to work around everything will not volunteer it.
- What are your insurance limits, and will you issue a certificate naming the operator and the FBO? No certificate, no ramp access, and that is the commonest reason a booked visit does not happen. General liability alone frequently carries aviation exclusions, so ask what the policy actually covers you for on an airframe.
- Can I see the written scope, line by line, before I compare quotes? The gap between two quotes is almost always scope, not standard. Once both are written down, including what happens if the condition proves worse than the photographs showed, they can be compared honestly.
Questions we get
- Is it restoration or replacement I need?
- Burns, delamination, dye stains that have gone through the pile and carpet worn thin at the traffic points are replacement items. Extraction lifts soil; it does not put back fibre that has gone. The same applies to leather cracked or worn through its finish. We tell you which it is before starting.
- Can you fix leather a previous detailer left tacky?
- Usually. A conditioner film sits on the surface and is stripped back with the right chemistry, after which the leather is cleaned and conditioned to its original sheen and left there. Leather fed repeatedly for years takes longer, and some variation in sheen can remain.
- How long is the aircraft tied up?
- A midsize cabin is usually a crew-day, a large cabin longer, plus drying. Drying is the part that cannot be compressed. If a departure is fixed, give us the time and we will scope a lower-moisture method to fit it and tell you plainly what that will and will not achieve.
- Will extraction get rid of the smell?
- If the source is in the carpet or underlay, a spill, catering or a biological event, treating it at source usually does. If it is in the environmental system or an insulation blanket, that is a maintenance matter and we will say so rather than fog the cabin and hand it back.
- Is it worth doing before a sale or a lease return?
- The cabin is the first thing a buyer's representative looks at, and interior condition colors how the rest of the aircraft is judged. A lease return is stricter: it is assessed against the return condition wording in your agreement. Send us that wording and we will scope to it, rather than to a general idea of clean.
- Can you quote from photographs?
- For most cabins, yes. Send wide shots of each carpet section including under the divan and along the seat rails, close shots of the leather at headrests, armrests and seat bolsters, and anything you already know is a problem. If it needs eyes on it, we will say so.
- Do you work in a hangar or on the ramp?
- Either, though a hangar suits this scope better: power, a stable temperature and somewhere to stage extraction equipment, which makes drying predictable. On an open ramp at PDK in August, humidity governs the schedule. We work PDK, RYY, ATL, FTY and LZU, and across Georgia for scheduled work.
Send the tail number, the airport, the aircraft type and the date it has to be ready. Add photographs of the carpet at the seat rails and under the divan, the leather at headrests and armrests, and anything you know a previous vendor did to it. That is enough for a written scope and a real number, usually the same day.
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.
Other cost questions