What it costs
How much does a fleet aircraft detailing program cost?
A fleet program is priced one tail at a time and then scheduled as a group. Two aircraft on the same type certificate can sit a long way apart: one hangared at PDK flying a few owner legs a month, the other on a tie-down turning charter daily. A program is not a discount. What it changes is the shape of the work. It fixes the standard, fixes the interval, and puts each visit inside a window your schedule already owns, and that is where the number actually moves.
Why there is no number on this page
We quote against a written scope, and the scope comes from walking the aircraft. That is why there is no figure on this page. A program for three hangared light jets on a long interval and a program for a mixed charter fleet living outside are not the same job, and one published number flatters one fleet while insulting the other. A published number also hardens. It stops being an estimate and becomes a ceiling, so the work gets cut to fit the figure instead of the figure being built from the work. A vendor willing to price your fleet sight unseen has not seen the paint, the cabins, the marks the last vendor left, or what the ramp allows after dark.
What actually moves the number
Tail count is the least useful number in the brief
Ten of the same type on one ramp is one problem repeated. A Phenom, a Global and a King Air at three fields is three problems that happen to share a calendar. Cabin volume, stand height, brightwork area, belly access and how many crew can work the aircraft at once all change with type, and a large-cabin tail can take a crew most of a night on its own.
The interval decides whether each visit is maintenance or recovery
This is the largest lever on a fleet program, and it is yours to set. An aircraft on a short, honest interval is being maintained: soil never bonds, the coating stays live, brightwork is topped rather than restored. Push the interval out and every visit becomes a recovery, with heavier chemistry, longer hours, and eventually machine correction on paint that would never have needed it.
How the fleet is actually flown
Two legs a week with two passengers is not the same aircraft as six legs a day with catering, children and a dog. High-cycle tails pick up exhaust soot and hydraulic film on the belly and gear far faster than hangared, low-utilisation aircraft, and their cabins wear at the touch points, on armrests, seat edges, table lips and the entry tread, rather than evenly. Coastal and unpaved operations add salt and grit, and both are abrasive.
Where the tails sleep, and how far apart they are
Hangared aircraft arrive at a visit needing less. Aircraft on a tie-down collect UV, rain dwell, ramp dust and pollen, and pollen season in Georgia is a line of work on its own. Distance counts separately: a fleet split between PDK, RYY, FTY and a satellite field is several mobilisations, several badge processes and several sets of ramp rules, not one visit with more aircraft in it.
What the ramp will let us do
Method is often decided by the field rather than by the aircraft. Storm-water rules at several Atlanta-area ramps limit what can go to the drain, which makes a dry or rinse-less wash the correct method rather than a compromise. Night access, tow availability, powered lighting and whether the hangar is shared with another tenant's aircraft all set how much gets done in one push, and whether a crew is working or waiting.
Access and staging inside the window
A program lives or dies on whether we get the aircraft or only the side of it that is not against a wall. Towing the tail onto open floor, getting stands to the empennage and upper surfaces, and having the cabin to ourselves rather than sharing it with maintenance all shorten the work. A tail wedged into the corner of a full hangar takes longer than the same tail on clear floor in daylight.
The protection state of the paint and the cabin
A coated airframe washes faster, releases soil more readily and holds its presentation between visits. An uncoated tail with oxidized single-stage paint needs more chemistry every time and eventually correction. Correction is subtractive. It removes finish, and an airframe only has so much to give, so on an older fleet the honest program protects what is left rather than cutting it back every year. Interiors behave the same way: leather and carpet kept protected stay recoverable.
What the last program left behind
The first cycle on a new fleet is usually a recovery cycle and should be scoped as one. We routinely take on tails carrying rotary holograms that only show under a ramp light, silicone dressings on plastics that now hold dust, leather over-conditioned to a tacky sheen, and Alcantara matted flat by the wrong chemistry and too much water. Undoing that is separate work from maintaining an aircraft, and a vendor who ignores it is either not looking or plans to bill it later.
What the work actually consists of
It starts with a survey. We walk every tail where it sits, record condition in photographs, and write a scope per aircraft, not one scope stamped across the fleet. Then a recovery cycle brings the outliers up to the standard the program is meant to hold. After that the calendar repeats: trip-ready resets in the short windows, interior details on a longer interval, exterior washes by the method the field permits, brightwork on its own cycle, and correction and coating maintenance measured in years rather than months. Crew size is set by the aircraft and the window. A large-cabin interior is a crew-night; a light jet wash is a short push. Each visit closes with a photographed record and a named contact, with a certificate of insurance held on file at every FBO you use.
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.
- Show me the written scope for one tail, then the scope for the tail parked next to it. Two scopes that read identically across a mixed fleet mean nobody has walked the aircraft. A blanket scope is written for the easiest tail and delivered at the lowest standard in it, and the gap shows first on the aircraft that needed the most.
- Who is physically on the stand, and is it the same crew every cycle? Consistency across a fleet is a staffing question before it is a technique question. If the faces change every month, so does the finish, and your aircraft start to look different from one another for no reason a passenger can name.
- What are your insurance limits, and will you name each FBO and our management company as additional insured before the first visit? Aviation-specific cover at limits an FBO will accept is the difference between a crew starting on time and a crew arguing at the gate. A certificate produced after the aircraft is already waiting has cost you the window.
- What does the first cycle include that later cycles do not? If the answer is nothing, either they have not looked at the aircraft or they intend to bill the recovery work later as an extra. A new fleet almost always needs one heavier pass before a repeating interval means anything.
- Name the product that goes on the Alcantara, on aniline leather, on the acrylic transparencies and on the brightwork. Four different answers is the right answer. One product for all four is the most common cause of the damage we are called in to correct, and much of it, matted suede, crazed acrylic, tacky leather, is not put right by the next detail.
- What happens when a tail moves, or the hangar is not available on the date? Fleet calendars move weekly. A vendor who can only work when aircraft sit still will either miss visits or mark them complete having done a fraction of the scope, and you find out months later in the paint.
- What do I receive in writing after each visit, tail by tail? Photographed condition records are how you prove a standard is holding, and how a developing problem, a corrosion bloom under a fairing, a veneer starting to lift, a coating that has stopped beading, reaches you while it is still a detail rather than a shop visit.
Questions we get
- Is a program cheaper than booking each visit separately?
- We do not price it as a volume discount, and a vendor who offers one is discounting the work rather than the admin. What a program changes is the work itself. An aircraft held on a short interval never falls far enough to need recovery, so the heavy cycles move further apart and no visit is spent undoing neglect. You are buying a standard that holds; the calendar is how it is held.
- How many aircraft do you need before a program makes sense?
- Two, if they share a standard. The trigger is rarely tail count. It is whether someone in your department is spending their week chasing vendors, checking work and explaining the same requirements again. A program exists to take that off a scheduler's desk as much as to keep paint alive.
- Can you hold one standard across a mixed fleet?
- Yes, and it is written per tail rather than assumed. Each aircraft gets its own scope, because a Global's brightwork and a King Air's cabin are different problems. What stays constant is the finished condition, the documentation and the crew, not the method, which follows the aircraft.
- What happens when a tail is out of position on its scheduled date?
- We follow the aircraft where we can. Scheduled work runs across Georgia and out to two hundred and sixty-nine miles. Where we cannot, we move the visit rather than mark it done. Fleet calendars move constantly, and a program that only works when aircraft sit still is not a program.
- Does the program cover AOG and rush work?
- Rush and AOG dispatch runs seven days a week, around the clock, and is scoped separately from the program calendar. A moved departure or a spill an hour before boarding is not a scheduled cycle, and pretending otherwise would wreck the calendar for every other tail on it.
- What do we have to commit to?
- Tell us the interval you want held and we will write it into the scopes, tail by tail, with the review points where it can change. We would rather agree an interval that survives your flying season than a long commitment that quietly stops being honoured in the second quarter.
Send the tail numbers, types, home fields and how each one is flown, plus the interval you want held and the first window on the calendar. Photographs of the worst tail help more than a description. We will walk the fleet where it sits and come back with a written scope per aircraft and a real number.
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.
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