Fleet Care Program at Friedrichshafen (Bodensee-Airport) (EDNY)

Who needs a fleet program at Friedrichshafen?

Any operator running regular departures from EDNY will see the advantage: charter companies with aircraft on certificate here, corporate flight departments managing one or more tail numbers from the Lake Constance region, and FBOs offering managed aircraft to clients. If your fleet spends more nights at Friedrichshafen than anywhere else, recurring work makes more sense than calling for ad-hoc cleans.

The program suits super-midsize through ultra-long-range jets and ACJ or BBJ airframes. Light jets and turboprops are accepted only when part of a larger fleet under the same operator. We allocate crew and schedule around your movement patterns, so the aircraft comes back from a positioning leg or charter sector and finds the team waiting on stand rather than you chasing availability every time.

What changes at Friedrichshafen (Bodensee-Airport) for appearance work?

Bodensee-Airport sits at 1,367 feet elevation, 3.7 kilometres north-east of Friedrichshafen city centre, with a single runway—06/24, 2,356 metres—and handling provided by AVICON at the general aviation area on Am Flugplatz 64. The airport is not slot coordinated, so PPR is straightforward for based aircraft and their service windows.

April brings AERO Friedrichshafen, Europe's annual general-aviation trade fair, held on the airport grounds and the adjacent Messe. That week the ramp fills with business and private aircraft; stands are tighter, handler workload peaks, and any detailing or polish work needs to be booked well ahead or deferred until the event closes. For fleet programs we flag AERO dates in the service calendar and either advance the exterior or shift it into May, depending on your aircraft's rotation.

Lake Constance winters are cold enough to require Type I and occasionally Type IV fluid; exteriors scheduled between November and March account for the likelihood of cold-soaked wings and the need to work indoors or under cover when temperatures stay low for days. Summer and early autumn offer the longest daylight and the most predictable weather for brightwork and multi-stage polish.

How does scheduling work across the twelve months?

We begin by mapping your typical rotation: home-base nights per month, average turnaround length, peak travel periods, and any planned maintenance downtime. That becomes the service calendar—quick turns and cabin refreshes timed to fit between legs, monthly deep interiors during longer rests at EDNY, and seasonal exteriors when the aircraft will remain on the ramp for at least a day.

The calendar is not rigid. If a charter comes in late or a positioning leg shifts, we adjust the window and reallocate crew. AOG requests—bird strike, fuel spill, lavatory leak—jump the queue; priority access means a phone call brings a technician airside within the time we agreed at contract signature, even if that interrupts a scheduled job on another tail. The twelve-month span smooths these peaks: we carry enough labour budget across the year to cover unplanned work without surprise invoices.

What documentation does the program include?

Every visit generates a service record: date, aircraft registration, work performed, materials used, and tech-log sticker reference if the captain requests one. We photograph the cabin before we start and after we finish; exterior work gets the same treatment, with close-ups of any area that needed extra attention—leading edges, belly panels, nacelle inlets, gear bays.

Records and photos go into a shared folder accessible to your operations team and chief pilot. At the end of each quarter we compile a summary report and sit down—in person at EDNY or by video—to review what happened, compare the aircraft's appearance against the baseline from month one, and adjust the calendar for the next three months if your flying pattern has changed. That quarterly review also captures any OEM cabin-material guidance or new hydrophobic-coating recommendations, so the program evolves with the aircraft rather than running on autopilot for twelve months.

How does the fixed monthly budget work?

We calculate the annual cost of the agreed service calendar—number of quick turns, interiors, exteriors, polish cycles, and an allowance for AOG cover—then divide by twelve. You pay the same amount every month regardless of whether that month was light on activity or heavy, which makes fleet accounting predictable and removes the need to approve individual invoices each time we touch the aircraft.

If actual work in a given month significantly exceeds the allowance because of repeated AOG calls or additional aircraft added mid-contract, we flag it in the monthly report and discuss an adjustment at the next quarterly review. The reverse also applies: if your fleet flies less than expected and we consistently deliver below budget, the surplus can be banked toward an extra exterior detail or a single-stage polish before the contract renews. One invoice, one contact, no line-item surprises.

What happens when an aircraft joins or leaves the fleet mid-year?

New tail numbers can enter the program at any point. We add the aircraft to the service calendar, prorate the monthly budget from the join date, and deliver the same documentation and priority access. If the airframe is arriving from another operator and needs a baseline exterior decon and polish to match the rest of your fleet, we schedule that as a one-off before the recurring calendar begins; the cost sits outside the fixed monthly figure but can be spread across the remaining months if you prefer.

When an aircraft leaves—sold, relocated to another base, or moved off certificate—we close its service history, hand over all records and photos, and adjust the monthly invoice from the following period. No exit fees, no notice penalty. The program is built around the fleet you actually operate from Friedrichshafen, not a number locked in at signature.