Ceramic Coating at Treviso Antonio Canova (LIPH)

Why apply ceramic coating at a regional airport like Treviso?

Treviso sits three kilometres from the city centre and twenty kilometres from Venice Marco Polo, managed under the same airport system—AerTre, in which SAVE holds eighty per cent. The shared management means customs and Guardia di Finanza are on site for extra-EU clearance, but the traffic mix skews heavily toward scheduled low-cost carriers serving the Venice tourist calendar. For a detailing crew that needs five consecutive days in a hangar with no interruptions, the lighter business-aviation density translates to easier stand coordination and fewer slot conflicts.

Ceramic coating is not a ramp job. The aircraft spends the entire duration inside, where temperature and humidity stay controlled during curing. A regional field with fewer competing demands on hangar space often means faster access and lower risk of being pushed out mid-job when an AOG arrives. The trade-off is that you coordinate directly with the handler for hangar booking, GPU continuity, and airside escort—no dedicated FBO concierge to manage the details.

What happens during the ceramic-coating process?

The first day is decontamination: clay bar, iron remover, and solvent wipe to pull embedded brake dust, exhaust residue, and mineral deposits out of the paint. If the surface shows swirl marks, oxidation, or staining from de-icing fluid, the crew moves to paint correction—machine polishing with progressively finer compounds until the clear coat is optically flat. Brightwork—nacelle lips, leading edges, landing-gear chrome—gets its own polish cycle to remove corrosion and restore reflectivity.

Once the paint reads clean under inspection lights, the first ceramic layer goes on in small sections: spray or wipe application, immediate levelling with a microfibre block, then a flash time before the second layer. Windows and polished metal receive a separate ceramic formulation designed for non-porous substrates. The aircraft then sits untouched in the hangar for twelve to forty-eight hours while the coating cross-links. Before departure you receive a maintenance plan—wash intervals, approved soap chemistry, prohibited products—and a warranty document tied to that plan.

What changes at Treviso Antonio Canova for this service?

Treviso operates a single runway, 07/25, at 2420 metres, and the field elevation is fifty-nine feet. Those dimensions accommodate everything from turboprops to ultra-long-range jets without performance penalty, but the calendar matters more than the pavement. Because Treviso functions as the low-cost gateway to Venice, passenger demand—and therefore traffic density—follows the Venice tourist season: high summer, Carnival, and long weekends see the apron busy, while mid-winter and shoulder months open up. If you are scheduling a multi-day hangar reservation, the quieter windows give you better odds of uninterrupted access and flexible pushback timing.

Customs and Guardia di Finanza maintain a presence, so extra-EU arrivals clear here without diverting to Marco Polo. The practical implication: if your jet is inbound from outside the Schengen area and you want to start the coating process immediately, you can land, clear, taxi to the hangar, and begin decontamination the same afternoon. Handlers at the airport will coordinate the stand, GPU, and airside escort for the detailing crew; because no dedicated FBO is listed in the DATA block, expect to work directly with the handling agent for every logistical step, from hangar keys to waste-water disposal.

How does ceramic coating change the wash cycle?

A coated aircraft sheds water in continuous sheets rather than beaded droplets, and that hydrophobic behaviour extends to diluted de-icing fluid, belly grime, and exhaust soot. Contaminants sit on top of the ceramic layer instead of bonding to the paint, so a rinseless wash with two buckets and microfibre towels will lift them without scrubbing. Turnaround time at the FBO drops from ninety minutes to thirty, and you avoid the risk of marring the clear coat with repeated mechanical agitation.

The coating does not eliminate washing—it changes the chemistry and frequency. You still inspect leading edges for bug strikes and check belly panels for hydraulic weeps, but the interval stretches from every fifteen flight hours to every forty or fifty, depending on operating environment. If the aircraft splits time between the Mediterranean summer and North Atlantic winter, the ceramic layer resists both UV degradation and the alkaline salts in Type I fluid, so you are not chasing paint fade or streaking between seasons. The maintenance plan specifies pH-neutral soap, no degreasers on coated areas, and a booster spray every six months to refresh the top layer.

What documentation do you receive after ceramic coating?

Before the aircraft leaves the hangar, the detailing crew photographs every major surface—fuselage sections, nacelles, winglets, tail, belly, gear doors—under calibrated lighting. Those images go into a condition report that notes any pre-existing paint defects: chips along the cheat line, corrosion on gear-bay structure, stone strikes on the nose. The report becomes the baseline for warranty claims and the reference for the next detailing cycle. If a panel shows clear-coat failure two years later, you can compare the current state to the post-coating photographs and determine whether the failure originated before or after application.

The warranty document lists the coating product by batch number, the number of layers applied to paint and brightwork, the curing temperature and duration, and the maintenance requirements. Most ceramic warranties run twenty-four to thirty-six months and remain valid only if you follow the wash intervals and approved chemistry in the maintenance plan. That plan lives in the tech log or the flight-department shared drive, and it travels with the aircraft. If you change handlers or move to a new home base, the new ground crew needs that document to avoid inadvertently voiding the warranty with an incompatible soap or a high-pressure wash.

When should you schedule ceramic coating instead of a simpler wash?

Ceramic coating makes sense in three situations: immediately after a repaint, when the clear coat is fresh and you want to lock in that finish for the next three years; after a complete detail, when the paint has been fully corrected and you are ready to protect the work; or when the aircraft operates in a harsh environment—coastal salt, high UV, frequent de-icing—and you want to slow the rate of degradation. If the current paint is already oxidised or the clear coat is failing, ceramic will not reverse the damage; you need paint correction first, and if the correction reveals substrate issues, a repaint becomes the better investment.

The three-to-six-day hangar commitment is the limiting factor. If the aircraft is scheduled for heavy maintenance or a cabin refurbishment that will keep it down for two weeks, adding ceramic coating to the same visit makes logistical sense. If the jet is flying a tight charter schedule or covering an ACMI contract, the opportunity cost of losing six revenue days may outweigh the long-term wash savings. The calculation changes if you are preparing the aircraft for sale or lease return: a coated exterior signals recent investment and reduces the buyer's immediate detailing burden, which can shorten the transaction timeline.