Fleet Care Program at Bolzano Dolomiti (LIPB)

How does a fleet program work at Bolzano Dolomiti?

We build a service calendar around your flight schedule at the start of the twelve-month term. Quick turns—dry wash, glass, cabin tidy—slot into your downtime between trips, typically two to four hours on stand. Monthly interior deep-cleans happen during longer gaps: seat conditioning, galley degreasing, lav service, carpet extraction. Seasonal exterior work—rinseless wash, leading-edge polish, belly decon—is timed to weather windows and your operational rhythm, usually twice in summer and once before winter storage if the aircraft stays on the ground.

You receive a fixed monthly budget per tail number that covers the agreed calendar. AOG requests—bird strike clean-up, fluid overspray removal, unexpected decon before a charter—jump the queue at no surcharge; your fleet contract includes priority crew allocation and 24/7 phone access. Every visit generates a dated photo set and a service note added to your tail's history file, so you can track appearance between scheduled inspections and show owners or charter clients that the aircraft is maintained to standard.

What changes at Bolzano Dolomiti for a recurring service contract?

Bolzano Dolomiti sits at 789 feet in an alpine valley in South Tyrol, with a single 1,432-metre runway that was lengthened seventy metres south in late 2021. The airport opens 06:30 to 23:00 local (CET); terminal and handling run 05:30 to 23:00, and the General Aviation Office operates 06:00 to 22:00. ABD Airport S.p.A. is the operator and provides in-house handling through the General Aviation Office at the main terminal, Via Aeroporto Francesco Baracca 1 (SITA BZOOWXH). Jet A1 is supplied by ABD seven days a week from 06:00 to 23:00; AVGAS or MOGAS require advance notice through the local aeroclub. Customs are on site—Agenzia Dogane e Monopoli—so non-Schengen business flights clear at Bolzano without diversion.

Hangar space is available under ABD's hangar service regulation, both daily and long-term, and a private hangar exists for storage and maintenance of aircraft up to the hundred-seat class. For a fleet program, hangarage means we can schedule winter interiors and cold-weather brightwork indoors, and your aircraft stays clean between trips when snow or Föhn dust would otherwise dirty the fuselage overnight. We coordinate directly with the General Aviation Office for stand allocation, GPU and airside escort; once the twelve-month calendar is agreed, ABD expects us on the ramp at fixed intervals and the handler's ground crew know to call us if your aircraft lands early or if you push a departure.

What does the handler expect from a third-party detailing crew at this airport?

ABD Airport's General Aviation Office manages all ramp activity, so we notify them forty-eight hours before each scheduled visit and reconfirm the evening before. We hold permanent airside passes for Bolzano Dolomiti and drive our equipment van directly to your stand; if your aircraft is in the hangar, ABD coordinates tug and tow or we work inside if the hangar schedule allows. The handler expects us to log in at the General Aviation Office, confirm the aircraft registration and parking position, and sign the daily ramp movement sheet.

Water use follows ABD's environmental guidelines: rinseless wash is standard on the apron, and waste run-off is contained with absorbent mats if we work outside the wash pad. For cabin work, we plug into GPU through the handler's ground power cart or use our own battery packs if the aircraft is cold-soaked and you want to avoid an APU start. The General Aviation Office holds a copy of our insurance certificate and our no-touch avionics protocol; if we need access to gear bays or the belly while the aircraft is on jacks for scheduled maintenance, ABD's maintenance coordinator signs us onto the ramp under the same escort rules that apply to line technicians.

How do you schedule around flight operations in a fleet contract?

At the start of the twelve months, your operations team shares a rolling four-week flight schedule with us. We mark downtime windows—overnight stops, weekend gaps, maintenance slots—and propose a service calendar: quick turns every two weeks, interior deep-clean once a month, exterior wash every eight to twelve weeks depending on season. You approve the calendar, and we load the dates into our dispatch system and ABD's ramp coordination log.

When your schedule changes—a charter books at short notice, a positioning leg shifts, an AOG grounds the aircraft—you or your handler calls us and we adjust. If a quick turn falls away because the aircraft is flying, we roll it into the next downtime window. If you need an unscheduled clean before a high-profile charter, we pull a crew from another job and meet the aircraft on arrival; the AOG cover in your fleet contract means no delay and no premium rate. Every month you receive a service summary showing completed visits against the calendar, hours spent per tail number, and any schedule changes; the quarterly review compares the plan to actual activity and adjusts the next quarter's calendar if your operational pattern has shifted.

What documentation and photos do you provide for each visit?

Every service generates a dated entry in your tail's history file: registration, date, stand or hangar location, work completed, products used, crew names, start and finish time. We photograph the aircraft before we begin—wide shots of the fuselage, close-ups of any existing marks or stains—and after we finish: leading edges, belly, nacelles, cabin galley and lav, brightwork if we polished. The photo set goes into a shared folder you can access online, tagged by tail number and date, so your chief pilot or charter sales team can pull recent images without waiting for us to send them.

If we find something during the visit—a fluid leak staining the belly, a cabin panel lifting at the edge, a static port cover missing, a scratch in the cheat line—we note it in the service file and send you a photo and a text description the same day. For recurring issues—stubborn stains that need a second treatment, brightwork that would benefit from a single-stage polish instead of a quick buff—we add a recommendation to the quarterly review. The documentation trail also protects you: if an owner or a charter broker questions the aircraft's appearance, you can show a timestamped record of every clean and every corrective action we took.

Why choose a fleet program instead of booking each service individually?

A twelve-month contract gives you three things ad-hoc bookings do not: predictable cost, guaranteed crew availability, and a single point of contact who learns your aircraft and your standards. The fixed monthly budget per tail number means no invoice surprises and no negotiation every time you need a wash. Priority AOG cover means we answer the phone at three in the morning when a bird strike puts blood and feathers across the nose and your charter client lands in six hours. The service calendar removes the administrative load—your operations team stops chasing quotes and coordinating ramp access and instead receives a standing appointment that adjusts when your flight schedule changes.

For charter operators, the program also supports your sales process: you can tell a prospective client that the aircraft is detailed to a fixed standard every month, and you can send recent photos from the shared folder without waiting for us to shoot new ones. For corporate flight departments, the quarterly review gives you a structured conversation with your chief pilot or your flight-department manager about appearance standards, seasonal needs, and whether the current calendar matches the way the aircraft actually flies. The program is renewable at twelve months; most fleets continue year after year because the operational rhythm is already established and the cost is already budgeted.