Fleet Care Program at Stuttgart (EDDS)

What does a fleet-care program look like at Stuttgart?

The program begins with a kick-off meeting—either in person at the General Aviation Terminal or by video—during which we map out your flight department's rhythm: how many tails, average utilisation, seasonal peaks, preferred service windows. From that we draft a rolling twelve-month calendar that assigns each aircraft a monthly interior detail, a quarterly exterior wash, and a twice-yearly polish and brightwork session, all timed to coincide with layovers longer than four hours or overnight stops. Quick turns—dry wash, cabin tidy, galley restock check—slip into the turnaround slot you already hold.

Because Stuttgart is a fully coordinated Level 3 airport, every arrival and departure lives inside a slot, and the handler will not let an aircraft sit on stand beyond its allocated window without prior arrangement. We liaise with Kurz Aviation Service—the named handling agent at the GAT—to confirm stand availability and ensure our crew has airside access before your aircraft blocks in. If a monthly interior falls on a trade-fair week, when Messe Stuttgart fills the apron with extra traffic, we shift the appointment forward or backward by a few days rather than risk a stand conflict. The calendar is a living document; your ops team receives a quarterly PDF and can request changes by email or SMS up to 48 hours before each visit.

Every completed service generates a digital report: time stamps, work performed, materials used, and a set of date-stamped photographs that go into your aircraft's appearance history. At the end of each quarter we sit down—again, in person or remotely—to review the condition trends, flag any emerging issues (paint oxidation on the port nacelle, worn cabin-sole edging, galley scratches), and adjust the next quarter's scope if needed. One invoice arrives each month, covering all tails and all work; no per-visit paperwork, no surprise line items.

What changes at Stuttgart that affects fleet scheduling?

Stuttgart sits at 1,276 feet elevation, 13 kilometres south of the city centre, with a single runway—07/25, 3,345 metres—and a night-curfew regime that compresses the operating day. Jet departures are permitted from 06:00 to 23:00 local, and arrivals from 06:00 to 23:30; delayed landings may squeeze in until midnight only if the original schedule showed arrival before 23:30. The General Aviation Terminal itself is staffed from 05:30 until 23:00 on weekdays and until 22:30 at weekends, so any detailing work scheduled for late evening must be arranged in advance with both the handler and our crew, and the aircraft must be on stand before the GAT closes its doors.

The curfew matters for fleet care because it rules out overnight exterior washes that run past midnight. If your aircraft lands at 22:00 and departs at 07:00 the next morning, we have a five-hour window—minus the time needed for refuelling, catering, and handler paperwork—so we limit the scope to a dry wash and cabin vacuum rather than a full rinseless wash and interior shampoo. Seasonal planning helps: in winter, when frost and Type I fluid residue accumulate on the belly and gear bays, we schedule the heavier washes during longer weekend layovers or position the aircraft into Hangar 1 (the heated 6,000-square-metre space) if Kurz Aviation has room. Summer trade-fair peaks, especially during CMT (tourism), LogiMAT (logistics), and Retro Classics (automotive), bring waves of additional bizjets, tighter apron parking, and reduced hangar availability, so we move appearance work to the shoulders of those weeks.

Slot coordination also means you cannot extend a turnaround on the day without risking a fine or losing your next departure slot. We confirm every appointment 48 hours out, reconfirm 24 hours out, and keep a standby crew on call during trade-fair season in case an earlier slot opens. The handler expects third-party service providers to carry current airside passes, liability insurance, and a written letter of authorisation from the aircraft operator; we keep all three on file and renew them annually so there is no delay at the security gate.

How do monthly interiors and seasonal exteriors fit into a busy rotation?

Monthly interiors are built around your longest layover each month—typically an overnight stop or a weekend break between charter legs. The work takes three to four hours for a super-midsize cabin and includes vacuuming (including seat tracks and side-ledge channels), galley and lavatory deep-clean, leather conditioning, wood and veneer wipe-down, window and monument polishing, and carpet-stain removal. We do not strip and re-seal the cabin sole or pull seat cushions unless the quarterly review flags a need; the monthly visit is about resetting the cabin to its baseline rather than performing heavy maintenance.

Seasonal exteriors follow the calendar and the weather. A full rinseless wash—two-bucket method, pH-neutral soap, microfibre mitts, no high-pressure spray near static ports or avionics bays—takes between 90 minutes (light jet) and four hours (ultra-long-range airframe), so we schedule it during a daytime layover of six hours or longer. In spring we add a single-stage polish to remove winter oxidation and road-salt haze from the belly; in autumn we apply a hydrophobic sealant to the fuselage and nacelles so that winter moisture beads off rather than soaking into the paint. Brightwork correction—polishing the cheat line, wing leading edges, and nacelle lips—happens twice a year, usually in April and October, and requires access to a GPU so we can open the cabin door and work the aft fuselage without draining the battery.

Quick turns between legs are the lightest touch: a dry wash of the nose, wings, and tail (no water, just spray detailer and microfibre towels), a cabin tidy (galley wipe, lavatory check, vacuum of visible dirt, window interiors), and a walkaround photo to document the aircraft's condition before the next departure. These slip into the 45-minute gap between refuelling and the pre-flight walk, and the handler barely notices we were there. Over a twelve-month program, the combination of quick turns, monthly interiors, and seasonal exteriors keeps each tail in the fleet looking consistent, and the quarterly review ensures that no single aircraft drifts into neglect.

What does the handler expect from a detailing crew at the GAT?

Kurz Aviation Service runs the General Aviation Terminal and controls access to the apron, the two hangars, and the aircraft stands. Before our crew steps airside, the handler requires a copy of our liability insurance certificate (minimum €5 million third-party cover), a current airside-pass roster, and a letter of authorisation from the aircraft operator or flight department naming Terso as the approved appearance contractor. We submit these documents once at the start of the twelve-month program and renew them annually; the handler keeps them on file so that each subsequent visit requires only a phone call or email 24 hours in advance.

On the day, our crew checks in at the GAT security desk, presents airside passes, and logs the aircraft registration, service type, and estimated duration in the handler's daily movement sheet. The handler then assigns a stand—usually one of the close-in spots near the terminal if the aircraft is staying for several hours, or a remote stand near the hangars if the apron is crowded. If we need a GPU or external power to open the cabin door and run interior lighting, we request it during the 24-hour confirmation call; the handler will either provide a mobile unit or direct us to a stand equipped with a fixed 28-volt or 115-volt outlet.

The handler also expects us to observe the airport's environmental rules: no wash water may run freely across the apron (Stuttgart has strict surface-water controls), so we use rinseless wash methods or work inside a hangar if a traditional bucket wash is required. Waste—used microfibre towels, empty detergent bottles, vacuum-cleaner bags—goes into the handler's designated bins, not into the general apron skips. Finally, the handler requires that we vacate the stand at least 20 minutes before the next scheduled departure so that the line crew can complete their own pre-flight checks and the aircraft can push back on time. We have never missed a slot in five years of working at Stuttgart, and the handler knows it.

How does documentation and photo reporting work across a fleet?

Every service visit generates a digital report that lands in your inbox within two hours of our crew leaving the apron. The report includes the aircraft registration, date and time (both block-in and service-complete), stand number, work performed (listed line by line: 'rinseless wash, fuselage and wings; nacelle polish; cabin vacuum and galley deep-clean'), materials used (product names and dilution ratios, in case your OEM has restrictions), and any observations ('small paint chip on port winglet leading edge, 15 mm, recommend touch-up next visit'). Attached to the report is a set of time-stamped photographs: wide shots of all four quadrants, close-ups of any areas we worked (brightwork, belly, gear bays), and before-and-after pairs if we corrected a visible defect.

These reports accumulate into a service history for each tail number. At the quarterly review we pull the last three months of reports, arrange them in a folder, and walk through the trends: has the starboard nacelle been picking up more exhaust staining than the port? Is the cabin sole wearing faster near the galley? Are the window surrounds showing stress cracks in the veneer? The photo record makes it easy to track changes over time and to justify scope adjustments—adding a third exterior wash in summer, for instance, or scheduling an earlier brightwork session if the cheat line is dulling faster than expected.

For fleet managers juggling multiple tails and multiple bases, the documentation also provides audit cover. If your CFO asks why the appearance budget increased in Q2, you can show the extra visits triggered by trade-fair season and the additional polishing needed after a winter of de-icing fluid. If your chief pilot queries a scratch in the cabin, you can pull the before photo from the previous visit and demonstrate it was already there. The paper trail is as much a part of the program as the physical work.

Why lock into a twelve-month program rather than book visits ad hoc?

A twelve-month program delivers three advantages that ad-hoc booking cannot: cost predictability, crew familiarity, and priority access during peaks. The fixed monthly invoice covers all scheduled work for all tails, so your finance team can budget the appearance line item in January and forget about it until December. There are no seasonal surcharges, no weekend premiums, no surprise invoices when a quick turn takes an extra 20 minutes because the cabin was dirtier than expected. If an AOG detailing request arises—say, a charter client complains about a stain on the divan and you need the cabin cleaned before the next leg—we dispatch a crew within four hours at no additional charge, because you are already a program client.

Crew familiarity means our team learns your fleet's quirks: which tail has the sensitive smoke detector in the aft lavatory that trips if you spray cleaner too close, which cabin has the aftermarket veneer that needs a different polish, which captain prefers the logbook left open on the centre console rather than stowed in the side pocket. Over twelve months, the same two or three technicians service your aircraft again and again, and they stop needing to ask questions. They know where the external power receptacle is, they remember that your Gulfstream's cabin door needs a two-person lift, they recognise the ops manager's phone number when the call comes in.

Priority access matters most during trade-fair weeks and summer peaks, when every other charter operator in southern Germany is trying to book a last-minute wash. Program clients go to the front of the queue; ad-hoc requests go on a waiting list. At Stuttgart, where slots are tight and the apron fills fast, that priority can mean the difference between a clean aircraft and a delayed departure. The twelve-month commitment is a hedge against chaos, and in a coordinated environment like EDDS, predictability is worth more than flexibility.