What it costs
How much does aircraft interior detailing cost?
Interior detailing is quoted against hours in the cabin, and the hours are set by condition rather than by aircraft type. Two identical airframes parked on the same ramp can sit a full crew-day apart once you look at the carpet, the leather and what the last vendor left behind. So the useful question is not what a cabin costs in general. It is what makes yours take the time it takes, and how much of that you can see for yourself before anyone quotes you.
Why there is no number on this page
Every cabin we take on is quoted against a written scope, and the scope comes from seeing the aircraft. That is the whole reason there is no figure on this page. Pitch a number where a well-kept light jet lands and it under-describes a neglected large-cabin interior by days of work. Pitch it high enough to cover that and it is fiction for the aircraft that genuinely needs less. The deeper problem is what a published number does afterwards. It becomes a ceiling, and a ceiling is something a vendor works backwards from, trimming scope quietly until the job fits the figure instead of the aircraft. Anyone who quotes a cabin they have not seen is guessing, and the guess gets corrected once the crew is standing in it.
What actually moves the number
How much cabin there actually is
Wingspan tells you very little. What matters is seat count, whether there are divans, how many lavatories, whether there is a galley with a working sink and coolers, a crew rest, and a baggage compartment reachable in flight. Two cabins of the same length are different jobs when one has four seats and a single lav and the other carries a full galley, a divan and two lavatories. The second has far more enclosed, hand-touched, awkward-to-reach surface, and that is what hours are spent on.
What the carpet has taken on
Carpet sets the schedule more often than anything else. Wool and nylon behave differently, a runner that lifts out is a different job from carpet bonded to the floor, and traffic patterns that reappear within a day of the last clean mean soil was wicked back up rather than removed. Deep extraction is worked in passes with recovery between them, and each pass costs drying time that cannot be shortened by adding people.
The leather, and what has already been put on it
Aniline and pigmented leather want different chemistry, and telling them apart is the first job. The bigger variable is history. Leather conditioned at every visit for years carries a film that has to be stripped back before it can be cleaned properly, which adds a whole stage in front of the work you asked for. Dye transfer from denim onto cream seats is its own slow, seat-by-seat problem.
Alcantara, headliner and the surfaces you cannot scrub
Suede-type textiles and headliner are the slowest surfaces in the cabin, area for area. They cannot be worked hard without matting the nap permanently, so they are cleaned in light passes with dwell time and lifted back in one direction. Sidewalls and the headliner directly over the seats are where hand oils and hair product concentrate, and they are also the areas a quick clean skips entirely, so they are usually the worst surfaces in the aircraft.
Veneer, stone, plated metal and the transparencies
Hard trim is several problems, not one. Veneer sits under a clear finish whose chemistry varies by manufacturer and by refurbishment history, so it is identified and tested in an inconspicuous area before anything touches the visible tabletops. Stone, plated hardware, cabinetry catches and window reveals each want their own product. Cabin window panes are acrylic: they scratch when approached like glass, and the wrong solvent crazes them, which does not polish out. Hazed transparencies show in every photograph taken in that cabin.
Odour, and whether the source can be found
Odour is not a surface to clean, it is a search. A spill that ran under a cushion, catering left in a galley drain, a lavatory service issue or a biological event each sit in a different place and are found by lifting, not by spraying. Some of that search is fast. Some of it means pulling cushions and checking the joint where the sidewall meets the floor. And some odour is an environmental or insulation matter, which is maintenance rather than detailing, and we will tell you so.
Hangar, ramp, power and drying time
Hangar work is better work. Inside, you control temperature and humidity, the carpet dries on schedule, and the crew can light the cabin properly. On an open ramp at PDK in August, humidity slows every drying stage and a cabin left open takes on ramp dust. Extractors and lighting want ground power, so whether the aircraft can be plugged in, or whether we bring our own, changes how the day runs. Night work needs the FBO's cooperation as well as ours.
The deadline, and how it gets met
A compressed window does not mean less work, it means more people doing the same work at once, plus overnight or after-hours scheduling. Some stages refuse to be compressed at all: dwell time is dwell time and carpet dries when it dries. If the aircraft departs at seven in the morning, the honest answer may be that the cabin can be reset properly now and fully detailed at the next real downtime, and we would rather say that than rush a stage that shows.
What the work actually consists of
It starts with a walk-through, panel by panel, and a written scope with the exclusions stated plainly. Then dry work first: cushions out, seat tracks, rails, the sidewall-to-floor joint, vents and every crevice a vacuum head does not reach, because wet work over loose soil grinds it in. Hard trim next, each material on its own chemistry, tested before it is used. Leather cleaned, then conditioned only where the hide needs it and stopped there. Carpet extraction last, so drying runs while everything else is finished. Full interior depth on a midsize cabin is a crew of two to four across a long day or an overnight, not one person for an afternoon. Final inspection is done with the cabin lit the way it will be lit in flight.
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.
- Is this based on someone having seen the cabin, or on my description of it? A quote given over the phone is a guess with a revision built into it. The revision arrives when the crew is already at the aircraft and you have no leverage left.
- What is excluded — headliner, sidewalls, seat tracks, lavatory, galley, baggage, cockpit? These are the areas a fast job skips, and they are exactly where a cabin looks tired. A cheaper quote that stops at the visible surfaces is not cheaper, it is smaller.
- How many people, for how long, and on what day? Crew-hours are the product. A vendor who cannot state crew size and window has not planned the job, which means they will discover its real size on your aircraft.
- How do you tell what my leather is before you put anything on it? Aniline and pigmented leather need different handling, and one conditioner used across everything is how cabins end up glossy and tacky. The right answer involves identifying and testing first.
- If the odour source is not obvious, what do you do? You want an answer about finding the source. If ozone, fogging or fragrance is the first move rather than the last, you are buying a few days of cover and the smell comes back.
- What happens if the cabin is worse than described, and who approves the extra work? Conditions get discovered. What matters is whether that becomes a written change you approve before the work happens, or a line on the invoice you see afterwards.
- What insurance do you carry, and will you send a certificate to my risk contact directly? Ordinary commercial general liability frequently carries aviation exclusions. A headline limit on a policy that excludes aircraft work is a large number that does nothing for you.
Questions we get
- Why will you not give me a ballpark over the phone?
- Because the ballpark would be the thing you remember, and it would be wrong. What we will do on a phone call is tell you what your cabin likely needs, how long it takes and what we would want to see, then quote against a written scope the same day.
- Does an interior cost less than an exterior?
- They are not larger and smaller versions of one job. An exterior is driven by surface area and finish condition. An interior is driven by materials and history, and a neglected cabin can take longer than a wash on the same airframe. Neither one predicts the other.
- How long does it take, and can we fly straight afterwards?
- The cabin is usable when the carpet is dry, and that is the stage that sets the schedule. In a hangar with power it is predictable. On an open ramp in Georgia humidity it is slower. Tell us your departure and we will plan the extraction around it.
- What can I check myself before I ask anyone for a quote?
- Run a hand along the headliner over the seats and look at the sidewall-to-floor joint. Check whether the leather is glossy or tacky rather than matte. Look under a cushion. Open the lavatory and the galley. Those checks predict most of the hours.
- Does keeping the cabin on a schedule reduce what a full detail costs?
- It reduces the work, which is the same thing. A cabin reset between trips keeps soil from ever reaching the underlay and stops leather from building a film. A cabin on a program needs fewer crew-days when the deep detail comes round than one left for years.
- Can you quote an aircraft that is not in Atlanta?
- Yes. Send photographs or a video walk-through in cabin lighting, and we will quote against a stated set of assumptions and confirm them on arrival. We travel out to 269 miles for scheduled work, and the assumptions are written down so nothing moves quietly.
Send us the tail number, the airport and FBO, the aircraft type and when it next needs to be ready. Add photographs of the carpet, the leather and the lavatory under cabin lighting, and tell us whether hangar space and ground power are available. That is enough for a real scope and a real number, usually the same day. AOG, call any hour.
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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