Fleet Care Program at Grenoble Alpes Isère (LFLS)

What does the Fleet Care Program include at Grenoble?

You receive a service calendar drafted in the first week, then adjusted each month as your schedule firms up. Quick turns—dry wash, cabin tidy, galley restock, trash and lav—slot between morning departures and afternoon returns without extending turnaround. Interior deep-cleans run monthly: we pull seat-tracks, steam galleys, treat leather and vacuum the cockpit while the aircraft overnights. Exterior washes and single-stage polish happen seasonally—twice in winter if you're flying de-icing ops, once in spring and again before summer—and brightwork comes up on the same cadence.

Every visit generates a dated photo set and a tech-log entry; the images go into a shared folder so your operations team can show owners or charterers the condition of the cabin between revenue legs. One invoice covers the month's work across all tail numbers in the program, and because we hold crew availability every week, AOG requests jump the queue. If an aircraft diverts with hydraulic fluid down the belly or a catering spill two hours before a positioning leg, the same team that did last week's turn is on the ramp with the right kit.

How does scheduling work around a busy flight department?

At the start of each month you send us the provisional roster: departure slots, overnight stops, maintenance windows. We mark quick-turn opportunities—typically any gap longer than ninety minutes—and block evening or early-morning spans for deeper work. If a charter sells or a positioning leg moves, a message to the dedicated contact shifts the calendar; we keep a seventy-two-hour float for interior work and a two-week window for exterior jobs, so most changes absorb without fuss.

The program works best when aircraft spend four or more days a month at Grenoble, but we've run it for fleets that touch down weekly: the quick turns happen every visit, and the heavier tasks stack during longer stops. Because Grenoble's traffic peaks through the ski season—December to April—and quiets in summer, we often schedule annual paint correction and gear-bay decon in May or June when the apron is less congested and the aircraft sits between charter waves.

What changes at Grenoble Alpes Isère that affects fleet appearance?

The airport sits at 1,302 feet on the Bièvre plain with a 3,050-metre asphalt runway capable of handling large business jets, so ultra-long-range aircraft and ACJs land without performance constraint. ExecuJet, the FBO partner of airport operator Edeis, runs the Terminal Affaires at the airport entrance; all our work coordinates through them as the handling agent present at the airport. Traffic concentrates heavily in winter—the FBO markets itself as the gateway to Alpe d'Huez, Les Deux Alpes and Villard-de-Lans—which means December through April the apron is busy, slots tighten and aircraft accumulate de-icing fluid, road salt and standing water faster than at a low-altitude field.

We adapt the Fleet Care Program to that rhythm: winter months include post-de-ice rinses (rinseless wash of the belly, nacelles and leading edges within six hours of a Type I or IV application) and more frequent undercarriage cleaning, while summer schedules stretch to fortnightly quick turns and quarterly interiors. Customs and immigration integrate on request; from December to April border control follows the operator's hours, and outside that window non-Schengen flights need twenty-four to forty-eight hours' notice, so we build service windows around those lead times if your fleet operates into and out of the Schengen zone.

What does the handler expect when a third-party detailing crew works the ramp?

ExecuJet issues our team airside passes and expects us to coordinate every job through their duty desk: arrival time, stand number, GPU or APU requirement, waste and water service. We carry third-party liability cover that names the FBO and the airport operator, and we follow their apron-safety brief—hi-vis, no-phone zones near running engines, positive communication before moving steps or equipment. If the aircraft is under power when we arrive for a quick turn, we wait for the handler's all-clear; if it's cold-soaked overnight and we're doing an interior, we ask the handler to arrange GPU so the cabin warms before we treat leather or clean glass.

The FBO prefers that exterior washes happen on stand rather than in a hangar, which suits us: we use rinseless chemistry and recover all run-off, so there's no environmental-approval delay. For deeper work—gear-bay decon, belly polish—we sometimes move the aircraft into one of the maintenance hangars if the operator has arranged it, but most monthly tasks finish on the apron between the evening arrival and the next morning's departure. The handler logs our presence in the movement record, and we leave a service sticker inside the main cabin door so the crew knows the aircraft has been turned.

How does documentation and reporting work across a twelve-month program?

After every visit—whether a fifteen-minute dry wash or a four-hour cabin deep-clean—we upload time-stamped photographs to a shared folder: wide shots of the exterior from four angles, close-ups of any new leading-edge chips or belly stains, interior frames showing galley, lavatory, seating and cockpit. The images carry EXIF data with the date and GPS coordinates, so if an owner queries cabin condition before a charter or an insurance surveyor asks for appearance history, you have a visual log that spans the year.

Each month's invoice lists every service by tail number and date: 'Quick turn 12 March, interior deep-clean 19 March, exterior wash and polish 26 March.' At the quarter we sit down—in person at Grenoble or by video—and walk through the photo archive, flag anything that needs attention (a worn seat bolster, a nacelle that's picking up exhaust stain faster than expected) and adjust the next quarter's calendar. That review also sets the budget for any add-on work: if you've added a tail to the fleet or if winter has been harsh and the bellies need an extra polish cycle, we price it then and roll it into the next period.

Why does a fixed monthly budget make sense for a fleet program?

Charter and corporate operators budget annually, and appearance costs that swing month to month—three quick turns in January, none in February, an unplanned exterior in March—make forecasting harder. The Fleet Care Program spreads the year's work into equal monthly payments: we estimate the number of quick turns, interiors and exteriors each tail will need over twelve months, add the AOG cover and photo documentation, then divide by twelve. If actual flying hours run higher, the extra turns draw from a small contingency line; if the aircraft sits more than expected, we bank the margin and apply it to an end-of-term detail or carry it into the renewal.

One invoice, one contact and one purchase-order number also simplify procurement: finance doesn't chase ad-hoc quotes, and the ops team doesn't coordinate three different vendors when an aircraft needs a cabin clean, a belly wash and brightwork touched up in the same visit. For FBOs managing fleets on behalf of owners, the fixed cost becomes a line item in the monthly management fee, and the photo reports give owners confidence that their asset is being looked after even when they haven't flown for a fortnight.