Its the scope of aircraft interior work thats hard for many owners to wrap their mind around. Imagine you want to spruce up your living room. You could spring for a couple slip covers for the tired couch and put down a new throw rug. Or you could strip out everything right down to the studs in the walls and build it up fresh with new wall boards, carpet, built-in bookshelves … you get the idea.

Looking at our recent reader survey, aircraft owners exercise the same range of

upgrade options on their aircraft. With over 200 responses we saw everything from slip covers to cabin-class makeovers that cost more than a small house. Even trying to narrow this down to the standard seats, panels, headliner, and carpet work to compare is difficult. Consider that some shops might remove a pilot-side panel, clean it, paint it, recover the armrest, and reinstall it. Other shops would take that same panel and refinish the surface, dye penetrate the plastic for color and UV protection or cloth-cover it, perhaps add pen and chart holders or remove and cover a long-unused ash tray, rebuild the foam in the armrest and cover that with Italian leather.

The takeaway point here is that you should find out explicitly what services youre getting for your money. More cost isn’t always better or appropriate, but you decisions should be informed. That said, some definite themes emerged on vendor, price, and satisfaction with the process and the result.

Prices and Services

The bulk of our respondents had some version of a complete interior done. For a four-seat single, the low end was $4200 for a Piper Arrow by a Texas shop. Cheap, but the owner also reported several problems. “Work that was ordered (I have written evidence from the shop) and work not done. For example the rear seats were to be stripped to bone, with all new foam padding. It was not done because