Fleet Care Program at Buochs (LSZC)

Why does a fleet program make sense at Buochs?

Buochs sits at 1475 feet in the alpine corridor, where winter de-icing residue, spring pollen drifts and summer insect strikes layer onto paintwork faster than at sea-level airports. Charter and corporate fleets based here typically fly tight turnarounds—often into neighbouring alpine strips or across to the Mediterranean—and appearance degradation compounds quickly when exterior care is postponed until 'someone notices'.

A twelve-month program removes that guesswork. We build a service calendar around your published flight schedule: quick rinseless washes after every second rotation, monthly interior detailing during longer overnight rests, and seasonal exterior compounds timed to spring and autumn shoulder periods when utilisation drops. You budget a fixed monthly figure per tail number; we allocate crew, track service history, and photograph every visit so your operations manager—or your owner—can see condition trends without walking the ramp.

For charter operators juggling multiple tails, the program means one invoice, one point of contact, and no surprise callouts when a client inspection is forty-eight hours away.

What changes at Buochs compared to other Swiss bases?

Buochs operates from a single 2000-metre runway (06/24) and was a Swiss Air Force sleeping base until regular military use ended in 2017; today Airport Buochs AG runs the civil side, while an underground aircraft cavern and former military hangars remain on site. The Pilatus factory at Stans sits directly beside the airfield and uses it for PC-12 and PC-24 test and delivery flights, so outside pilots face taxiing restrictions around the factory apron.

For fleet-care logistics, those restrictions matter: your aircraft will often stand on the civil apron rather than near the factory perimeter, and our crew must hold valid airside passes and coordinate movement with airport operations before towing or positioning a GPU. Unlike Geneva or Zurich—Switzerland's only slot-coordinated airports—Buochs imposes no slot rules, so scheduling a two-hour detailing window during a midweek overnight is straightforward.

The alpine elevation and proximity to the lake mean that winter brings freezing fog and de-icing cycles; spring delivers heavy pollen from the surrounding forests; summer sees convective afternoon buildups that leave water-spot minerals on cold-soaked wings. A recurring program captures those seasonal rhythms: we schedule dry washes after de-icing events, plan single-stage polishes in May and October, and hydrophobic-coat the belly and nacelles before the wet months.

What exactly happens during a typical program month?

Each tail in the fleet receives a service mix calibrated to its utilisation. A lightly flown corporate jet might see two rinseless exteriors, one cabin vacuum and galley wipe-down, and a quarterly brightwork polish. A charter aircraft flying five legs a week will take weekly quick washes, fortnightly cabin spot-cleans, and a monthly deep interior with leather conditioning and carpet extraction.

We log every visit in your dedicated service history: date, flight hours since last clean, work performed, products used, and photos of leading edges, the cheat line, gear bays and cabin high-touch areas. If the tech log notes a hydraulic weep or a belly stain, we photograph it and flag it in the report so your engineers see it before the next inspection.

Quarterly, your operations team and our site lead sit down—in person at Buochs or by video—to review the appearance trend: are winglet leading edges eroding faster than expected? Is galley brightwork dulling despite monthly polishes? Should we add a nacelle decon cycle before winter? The review becomes a planning session for the next three months, and any budget adjustment is agreed in writing before work begins.

How do you handle AOG or last-minute owner requests inside the program?

Fleet-program aircraft receive priority crew allocation: if your PC-24 returns with a belly covered in de-icing fluid at 22:00 and the owner boards at 08:00, our on-call team is dispatched ahead of one-off customers. The callout fee is waived because you are already inside the twelve-month contract; you pay only the hourly labour for the night crew.

Owner requests—'the cabin smells of catering from yesterday's flight' or 'we need the exterior camera-ready by noon tomorrow'—are logged as priority tasks. We keep a supply of OEM-approved cabin products and spare microfibre in our Buochs kit so we do not wait on a courier from Italy. If the request falls outside the agreed monthly scope—say, a full two-stage compound when only a rinseless wash was scheduled—we quote the extra cost by text or email, you approve it, and the crew starts within the hour.

The key difference from one-off service: we already know your aircraft, we already hold the airside pass, and we already have a standing coordination with airport operations. No paperwork delay, no 'we'll see if we can fit you in'.

What does the photo and documentation trail actually give us?

Every visit generates a dated photo set: wide shots of the entire aircraft on stand, close-ups of leading edges and nacelle inlets, cabin overview from the entry door, galley and lavatory detail, and any noted defects—paint chips, hydraulic stains, loose brightwork fasteners. The images are uploaded to a shared folder within twenty-four hours, tagged by tail number and date, so your operations manager can pull a six-month gallery in two minutes.

When an owner questions why the windscreen has a new scratch or why the carpet looks worn, you have a visual record proving the damage appeared between the March and April visits. When you sell the aircraft or hand it to a new operator, the service history—complete with photos and product logs—becomes part of the handover package and demonstrates consistent care.

For charter certificate audits, the documentation satisfies any requirement to show 'regular appearance maintenance': every cabin clean is logged with the flight-hours reading from the tech log, every exterior wash notes the date and the de-icing fluid removed. We have seen auditors simply photograph our service summary and move to the next checklist item.

How do we start a Fleet Care Program at Buochs, and what commits us?

We begin with a baseline inspection of each tail: the crew photographs the current condition, notes any existing paint defects or cabin wear, and measures gloss on the fuselage and winglets with a meter. That inspection becomes the programme's 'day zero' record, so there is no dispute six months later about whether a belly stain or a seat-leather crack was pre-existing.

You then receive a twelve-month service calendar in spreadsheet form: proposed dates for quick washes, monthly interiors, seasonal compounds and brightwork cycles, all cross-referenced to your published flight schedule. You adjust the dates to match maintenance windows or owner-travel plans, we lock the calendar, and the program starts. The fixed monthly invoice is issued on the first of each month and covers the agreed scope; any AOG or additional work is invoiced separately with prior approval.

The contract is twelve months, renewable. If you sell a tail or move it to another base, that aircraft drops out of the program with thirty days' notice; the remaining tails continue. If you add a tail mid-year, we run the baseline inspection and pro-rate the monthly budget from the entry date. The goal is a predictable cost and a predictable result: your fleet always looks ready, and your operations team never scrambles for a last-minute detailer.