Fleet Care Program at St. Gallen-Altenrhein (LSZR)

Why choose a twelve-month program rather than booking each visit?

Recurring aircraft benefit from predictability. When a tail returns to Altenrhein three or four times a month, scheduling a rinseless wash after every second rotation—or a cabin refresh at the start of each calendar month—removes the need to raise a purchase order, negotiate a slot on the apron, and brief a new crew every time. The program assigns the same technicians to your aircraft, so they learn the cheat line, the cabin materials, the spots where leading-edge tape lifts, and the quirks in your tech log.

You receive a fixed monthly budget per tail number, regardless of whether that aircraft flew fifteen legs or five. Interior work happens on a calendar—first Tuesday of the month, for instance—and exteriors follow either the calendar or the flight schedule, whichever makes sense for your operation. AOG requests jump the queue: if a charter guest spills red wine an hour before departure, or if a bird strike leaves a nacelle streaked, the program guarantees a technician airside within the time window we agreed at the start of the contract.

Service history and photographs are filed after every visit, so when the aircraft goes to an MRO or changes management, the appearance record is already written.

What changes at St. Gallen-Altenrhein for a detailing crew?

Altenrhein sits at 1,306 feet on the southern shore of Lake Constance, with a single hard runway—10/28, 1,455 metres—and an ILS approach to runway 10. The field is a customs-clearing airport with Schengen and non-Schengen immigration, so international business flights arrive and depart directly without a tech stop. No slot or PPR allocation is required for business aviation; you coordinate directly with the handling agent present at the airport, which is the operator's own ground-services division.

The lake and the proximity to Austria, Germany and Liechtenstein mean the apron sees a mix of short European hops and longer legs to the Mediterranean or Scandinavia. Winter brings freezing fog and occasional snow; summer is warm but humid. Paint that spends six months in the alpine cold and six in lakeside heat will show micro-cracking and oxidation faster than it would at a southern field, so the program schedules a single-stage polish in spring and another in autumn, with a decon pass before each. Brightwork around the nacelles and belly collects road salt and de-icing fluid in winter; we document corrosion early and treat it before it spreads.

The business aviation terminal at Flughafenstrasse 11 includes a crew lounge, and the apron is compact enough that an aircraft rarely sits more than fifty metres from the building. Water is available, though we confirm hydrant access with the handler before each exterior wash. The short runway and moderate elevation mean most super-midsize jets depart comfortably, but cold-soaked fuel and summer density altitude still matter for longer legs; we never interrupt a turnaround that has a tight slot for departure.

How does the program fit around a flight schedule that changes weekly?

The service calendar is a framework, not a rigid timetable. At the start of the contract, we agree on the rhythm: exteriors every ten days, interiors once a month, brightwork twice a year. Then, each week, your operations team or chief pilot sends us the expected arrivals for the next fourteen days. If the aircraft is due an exterior wash and you have a six-hour turnaround on Thursday, we book that window. If the schedule tightens and the turnaround drops to ninety minutes, we push the wash to the next overnight stop at Altenrhein.

Monthly interior work is easier to plan because it does not depend on a same-day departure. We block four to six hours when the aircraft will remain on stand, usually early in the month. Seasonal tasks—decon, polish, gear-bay cleaning—happen during scheduled down periods: the week before a major inspection, the gap between charter contracts, or the lull in December when the flight department takes leave.

The program includes priority crew allocation, which means that when your aircraft lands unscheduled—weather diversion, passenger change of plan—we pull a technician from a lower-priority job and send them to your stand. That flexibility works because the monthly budget already covers the labour; you are not paying overtime or call-out fees every time the schedule shifts.

What does the handler expect when a third-party detailing crew is on the apron?

The ground-services team at Altenrhein coordinates all airside access, so before each visit we confirm the stand assignment, the water supply, and the escort requirement. Most of our technicians hold Swiss airside passes, but if a new crew member is on the job, the handler provides an escort from the gate to the aircraft. We carry our own equipment—wash trolley, vacuum, polish kit, brightwork compound—so the handler does not need to supply anything beyond water and, occasionally, GPU access if the cabin clean runs longer than the aircraft batteries allow.

The handler expects us to notify them when we arrive airside, when we begin work, and when we leave. If we need to reposition the aircraft—rotating it for better light during a paint inspection, or towing it to a sheltered stand for a cold-weather interior—that request goes through the handler, and we wait for their clearance. We never move the aircraft ourselves, and we never open panels or hatches without logging it in the tech log.

Waste water from a rinseless wash is collected in our trolley and disposed of at the designated point; we do not let it run onto the apron. Trash from the cabin—newspapers, catering waste, used cleaning rags—goes into our own bags and leaves with us. The handler appreciates that discipline because it keeps the apron clean and reduces their own waste-handling workload.

What does the quarterly appearance review include?

Every three months, we sit down with your operations team—chief pilot, flight-department manager, or whoever owns the appearance budget—and review the service history for each tail in the program. We bring photographs from every exterior wash, interior clean, and brightwork pass, arranged chronologically so you can see how the paint and cabin have aged over the quarter. If oxidation is creeping along the cheat line, or if a particular seat is showing wear faster than the others, the photos make that visible before it becomes a problem.

We also compare the planned calendar against what actually happened: how many times the schedule changed, how many AOG calls we answered, and whether the monthly budget is covering the work or needs adjustment. If your flight department added a third tail mid-contract, or if one aircraft is now flying twice as often as the others, the review is the moment to rebalance the program.

The meeting usually lasts an hour. You tell us what is working and what is not—maybe the monthly interior is too frequent, or maybe you want us to add a bilge inspection to the seasonal checklist—and we adjust the calendar for the next quarter. The goal is to keep the program aligned with how you actually operate, not with how we thought you would operate when the contract was signed.

Who should consider a fleet program at Altenrhein rather than ad-hoc bookings?

The program makes sense for any operator that bases at least one aircraft at Altenrhein and flies it regularly. Corporate flight departments with a single super-midsize jet benefit because the monthly cost is predictable and the service happens automatically; you do not need to remember to book a wash or chase a cabin clean before the CEO's next trip. Charter operators with two or three tails find that the program reduces administrative overhead—one invoice, one contact, no haggling over prices when the schedule compresses—and the priority AOG cover means a spilled drink or a dirty windscreen does not delay a revenue leg.

FBOs and management companies that handle multiple owners often enrol all their based aircraft in a single program, then allocate the cost per tail. The quarterly review gives them a document to show the owners: here is what we did, here is what the aircraft looks like, here is why we recommend a polish next month.

If your aircraft only visits Altenrhein once or twice a year, the program is probably not the right fit. Ad-hoc bookings work better for transient traffic. But if the tail sleeps here more nights than it sleeps anywhere else, the twelve-month calendar will save you time, money, and the small daily friction of managing appearance work piecemeal.