Fleet Care Program at Frankfurt-Egelsbach (EDFE)

Why a fleet program at a high-movement general-aviation field?

Egelsbach handles over eighty thousand movements a year, making it Germany's busiest general-aviation airport. Most traffic is regional piston and turboprop work, but a steady stream of light and super-midsize jets uses the field to avoid Frankfurt's slot constraints and fees. If your aircraft is based here—or you're an FBO managing multiple tails on the ramp—appearance work becomes either a recurring scramble or a planned routine.

A fleet program turns the latter into a fixed process. You nominate the tail numbers, we build a service calendar that aligns with your typical rotation, and every aircraft gets the same treatment cycle: quick exterior turns after each trip, a full cabin detail once a month, seasonal exterior decon and a single-stage polish twice a year, plus brightwork and belly work as the schedule allows. One contact, one monthly invoice per tail, and your crews know that every time they shut down on the Egelsbach ramp, the next turnaround is already in the diary.

What changes at Frankfurt-Egelsbach for detailing work?

Egelsbach sits at 385 feet elevation with a single runway, 08/26, stretching 1400 metres. The airport operates daily from 08:00 to 21:00 local—never later than the end of civil evening twilight—and movements outside those hours require approved PPR. That day-only rhythm shapes every detailing job: all ramp work has to fit inside daylight operating hours, and if you want an aircraft cleaned overnight or at first light, it needs prior arrangement with the operator.

PPR is mandatory for jets, turboprops and faster piston twins (approach categories B and C), for any aircraft above 5.7 tonnes MTOW, and for movements needing fire category four or higher. PPR requests go through the airport's online portal and must be approved before the flight. TRIWO Handling—the airport operator—provides full-service handling on request; their desk and the airport lounge share the single terminal building. Ground handling is not compulsory at Egelsbach, so self-handling crews are common, but that also means coordinating airside access and GPU hookup if you want cabin work done while the aircraft sits on stand.

Because the field closes at twilight, winter days are short. A fleet program accounts for this: we schedule heavier work—full exterior decon, belly cleans, gear-bay work—during the longer days of spring and summer, and concentrate on quick turns and interiors during the darker months. Cold-soaked wings in winter mean dry-wash techniques come into play more often than rinseless, and hydrophobic coatings applied in autumn buy you cleaner leading edges through the wet season.

How does priority access work inside the program?

Every fleet-program aircraft gets a dedicated service window each month, but the real value shows up when schedules break. If one of your tails goes AOG at Egelsbach or diverts in with a tech-log squawk and needs a quick exterior turn before the next leg, you call the same number you always call, and we pull a crew from the roster. No new quote, no negotiation, no wait for a slot to open—your contract includes 24/7 AOG cover, and the crew arrives with the materials and water already approved for your aircraft type.

Priority also means we hold back capacity. During busy weeks—summer holiday season, trade-show clusters in Frankfurt, or when weather pushes a dozen diversions onto the Egelsbach ramp—ad-hoc requests can wait hours or roll to the next day. Fleet-program aircraft jump that queue. If your departure slot depends on a fifteen-minute dry wash to clear dust off the windscreen and pitot covers, that happens first.

What does the service calendar look like in practice?

At the start of the twelve-month term, we sit down with your operations team—chief pilot, flight-department manager, or FBO duty desk—and map out a baseline calendar. A typical super-midsize on a charter certificate might fly three legs a week; we schedule a quick exterior turn after every second flight, a full cabin detail on the third Thursday of each month, and a full exterior decon with single-stage polish in April and October. Brightwork—nacelles, leading edges, the cheat line if it's painted rather than tape—gets attention twice a year, and the belly and gear bays are opened up once a quarter if the aircraft is sitting overnight.

The calendar lives in a shared document, and your ops team can shift dates with seventy-two hours' notice. If a trip cancels or a positioning leg brings the aircraft back to Egelsbach a day early, we adjust. After every visit, you receive a short photo report and a service-history note for your tech log: what was done, which products touched which surfaces, any squawks we noticed (loose fasteners, static-port covers missing, worn door seals). At the end of each quarter, we send a summary and sit down—in person or by video—to review whether the cycle still fits your operation or needs tweaking for the next three months.

Does the program make sense for a single based aircraft?

Yes, if that aircraft flies often enough that ad-hoc bookings become a weekly task. A corporate flight department with one super-midsize based at Egelsbach, flying two or three legs a week, will call for exterior turns, cabin touch-ups and seasonal decon at least once a month. Booking each visit separately means repeating the same coordination—airside pass, PPR if you're outside hours, handler notification, GPU hookup, invoice processing—every time. A fleet program collapses all that into a single setup: the airside and handling arrangements are filed once, the invoice is monthly and predictable, and your crew knows the detailing team by face.

For FBOs managing multiple tails—especially if some are transient and some are based—the program works as a baseline contract for the based aircraft, with transient work billed separately. That way your own fleet always has priority, and the monthly budget is fixed regardless of how many one-off requests come in from visiting aircraft.

What happens if an aircraft leaves the program mid-term?

Life changes: aircraft sell, leases end, fleets relocate, or a tail gets pulled from charter and put into part-91 storage. If one of your program aircraft leaves Egelsbach or stops flying before the twelve months are up, we close out the service history, send the final photo report, and pause the monthly billing for that tail. There's no penalty, but the fixed monthly rate was built around a twelve-month commitment, so if you restart later or substitute a different tail number, we re-price based on the remaining term.

If the aircraft is simply moving to another base within our network—say, from Egelsbach to Cannes or Munich—we transfer the service calendar and history to the new location, and the program continues without interruption. The monthly invoice consolidates both bases, and your ops team still has one contact for everything.