How an aircraft is painted: from stripping to clear coat

On Friday evening, an A320 in plain white rolls into the hangar, and two weeks later it comes out again in bold colors – with a new logo, new titles and maybe even a new registration. In between lies a process that is only distantly related to painting a car. How an aircraft is painted is a mix of chemistry, craftsmanship and logistics: the old paint has to come off, the metal needs protection, and every layer has to be thin enough that the aircraft does not get needlessly heavier. This article walks you through the process step by step, shows how long it takes, who does it – and why paint shops are so exciting for spotters.

Painting an aircraft: the short answer

In a full repaint, an aircraft is masked, stripped, cleaned, inspected, pretreated, primed and then rebuilt layer by layer: base coat, color elements of the livery, clear coat, and finally lettering and markings. This happens in climate-controlled paint hangars with extraction, because paint only adheres and cures cleanly under controlled conditions. For large long-haul jets, around two weeks is a realistic timeframe, while smaller aircraft and simple designs go faster.

The most important difference from a car: weight counts. Every kilogram of paint flies along for the entire service life and costs fuel. That is why the layers are applied as thin as possible, and in a repaint the old paint is normally removed completely instead of being painted over.

A well-documented example shows the dimensions: Emirates has publicly described stripping and repainting an A380.

Step 1: preparation and masking

Before anything is sanded or stripped, the aircraft has to be protected. Windows, cockpit windshields, sensors and probes, antennas, landing gear bays, engine inlets and many seals tolerate neither stripper nor sanding dust. They are carefully covered and masked – on a widebody jet, a job that alone takes many hours.

The material matters too. Modern aircraft no longer consist of aluminum alone: control surfaces, fairings, radomes and, on types such as the Airbus A350-900, large parts of the structure are made of composite material. Such surfaces must not be treated with the same aggressive agents as metal because the resin can be damaged. The painters therefore work to the manufacturer’s specifications on which surface may be treated how.

Step 2: stripping

Next comes the dirtiest part of the job: the old paint has to come off. There are basically two ways:

• Chemical: A stripper is applied, softens the paint, and the dissolved layer is scraped off and washed away. For a long time, solvents such as dichloromethane were common for this and are increasingly being replaced by other substances because of their health risks.
• Mechanical: The paint is sanded off. This is labor-intensive and takes longer but is often the only permitted way on delicate components.

In practice, both methods are combined: metal surfaces chemically, composite components and critical areas by sanding. Waste, rinse water and solvent vapors have to be captured and disposed of – one reason why stripping only takes place in halls designed for it.

Step 3: cleaning and inspection

Once the skin is bare, a moment follows that many underestimate: the aircraft is now more visible than it rarely is. Without paint, corrosion, cracks, dents and repair spots are much easier to see. That is why paint jobs are often coupled with maintenance work – for example with a major check, when the aircraft stands in the hangar for a long time anyway. How such checks are structured is described in the article Aircraft maintenance: A to C checks.

Afterward, the surface is thoroughly cleaned and degreased. Even fingerprints or residue from stripper can later cause the paint not to hold.

Step 4: pretreatment and primer

Aluminum needs a chemical pretreatment before painting. The classic is a so-called conversion coating: a thin layer forms through a reaction with the metal surface, improves adhesion and slows corrosion. For a long time, baths with hexavalent chromium were used for this. In Europe, chemical regulations such as REACH are pushing the industry to replace these processes with less hazardous alternatives, for example based on trivalent chromium.

The primer follows. It is the bridge between substrate and color: it adheres well to the pretreated metal or composite and gives the paint above it an even base. On new aircraft, part of this protection is already applied during manufacturing – which is why around final assembly lines you sometimes see fuselage sections or whole aircraft in a greenish-yellowish protective layer, for example when spotting in Finkenwerder.

Step 5: base coat, colors and clear coat

Now it gets colorful. Modern aircraft paint jobs mostly follow a base coat–clear coat system: a color-giving layer – often the white of the fuselage – carries the look, and a transparent clear coat on top provides protection. Compared with the earlier buildup of several pure color layers, this system stays glossy longer, keeps the color more stable, dries faster and can be lighter.

The individual color elements of the livery are created one after another. For each color, the aircraft is masked, painted, dried and masked again. Complex lines and large motifs are transferred to the fuselage with stencils and computer-aided templates so that logos sit identically on both sides and on every aircraft in the fleet. Small, geometrically difficult elements such as titles or logos are sometimes also applied as decals.

Layer	Job	What matters
Pretreatment	adhesion and corrosion protection directly on the metal	clean, grease-free surface, a process suited to each material
Primer	link between substrate and color	even, thin layer
Base coat	base color, often the fuselage white	opaque but not too thick
Color elements	stripes, tail, logos, titles	precise masking, stencils, transitions
Clear coat	protection against UV light, erosion and fluids	gloss and durability over years

The number of passes depends heavily on the design. British Airways cited five paint layers for an A380 with around 2,300 liters of paint on around 3,500 square meters, with a dry weight of about 650 kilograms. For Emirates, it was seven layers and around 1,100 kilograms. More on cost, weight and durability is in the article What an aircraft paint job costs.

Step 6: lettering, markings and acceptance

Once the clear coat has cured, the details come that spotters like to overlook and technicians check all the more closely: registration, warning notices, walkways, markings for service points and emergency exits. Where the registration has to be and how large it may be is prescribed – details in the article Where the registration must be on the aircraft.

After that, what was covered is uncovered again. Moving parts such as control surfaces are checked because the paint can change their weight. Only when all inspections are complete does the aircraft go back to the airline. The first flight after painting is often a ferry flight – and a real photo moment for spotters at the paint shop’s location.

How long does a paint job take?

The honest answer: it depends. Three factors determine the hangar time most.

• Aircraft size: A widebody jet has many times the surface of a regional jet. By its own account, British Airways used 24 painters for two weeks on an A380, and Emirates cited 34 people involved and 15 days.
• Design: Every additional color means masking, painting, drying, masking again. A simple Eurowhite design is finished faster than a special livery with gradients and large-area motifs.
• Scope: A full repaint with stripping takes longer than a partial repaint in which only the tail and titles are redone.

Because an aircraft earns no money in the hangar, airlines like to schedule paint jobs in periods of lower demand or couple them with maintenance that is due anyway. When an airline changes its design, the fleet is therefore usually converted step by step – how that works is shown in the article When airlines change their design.

Paint or film?

For temporary advertising designs, some airlines turn to film instead of paint. Film can be applied and removed faster but has its own limits in durability and surfaces. You will find the comparison in the article Film or paint.

Who paints aircraft?

New aircraft usually get their first livery before delivery, either at the manufacturer such as Airbus or Boeing or at specialized partners working for manufacturers. For repaints during service, there are dedicated paint shops as well as maintenance companies with their own paint halls. A few names you should know as a spotter (as of October 2026):

Company	Key locations	What is interesting for spotters
IAC (International Aerospace Coatings)	European headquarters at Shannon Airport, US headquarters in California, ten sites in total in the US and Europe	by its own account more than 800 paint jobs per year; in 2026 a widebody hangar in Amarillo went into operation, and IAC also rents a hall in Malta
MAAS Aviation	paint halls in the Netherlands (including Maastricht), Germany, Lithuania and in Mobile (US) for manufacturer orders	by its own account 13 paint halls for narrowbody jets and capacity for around 580 aircraft per year
Air Livery	Norwich (Great Britain) and Châteauroux (France)	in Châteauroux, halls for widebody jets up to the size of the A330 and Boeing 777
Sabena technics	Dinard site (France) with a paint hall	maintenance and paint visitors in Brittany, away from the big hubs

At leasing companies in particular, the paint shop is a fixed part of an operator change: when a contract ends, the aircraft goes for painting before the next lessee takes it over. How this business works is explained in the article Aircraft leasing.

What this means for your sightings

For spotters, paint jobs are a double stroke of luck. First, paint shops bring aircraft to airports they never fly to in scheduled service. At Maastricht Aachen Airport, for example, aircraft regularly land only because of the resident paint shop – from the Maastricht spotting spot you can catch them in old colors, in plain white or freshly painted. The same goes for Shannon Airport. You will find an overview of more shipyard locations in the article Spotting at maintenance companies and shipyards in Europe.

Second, paint jobs create in-between states that exist only for a short time: aircraft without titles, with a new tail and old fuselage, or with remnants of the previous airline. The article Recognizing hybrid liveries classifies such mixed forms. If you photograph them, you document a chapter in the history of an individual aircraft – ideal for everyone who collects their photos by registration.

A tip from practice: follow the registration of an aircraft flying in for painting via live tracking. The article Tracking an aircraft by registration shows how. That way you know when it leaves the hall and where the first flight in new colors goes.

How to recognize a fresh paint job

• Gloss: New clear coat reflects much more strongly than a fuselage that has been exposed to sun, rain and de-icing fluid for years.
• Even white: Within a fleet, older fuselages often look slightly yellowish or gray. A strikingly pure white often gives away fresh paint.
• Clean edges: Over time, exhaust traces and abrasion collect on engine cowlings, wing roots and landing gear doors. Right after painting, they are missing.
• New design details: A changed logo, a new typeface or a different tail design are the most obvious clues – more in the article Livery design explained.

Conclusion

An aircraft paint job is not a quick color change but a multi-stage process: mask, strip, inspect, pretreat, prime and then build up base coat, colors and clear coat in layers that are as thin as possible. On large jets, it takes around two weeks, and in the end part of the result literally comes down to weight. For spotters, it pays to know the process: if you know where painting happens and when an aircraft leaves the hall, you have the best chance of rare visitors and fresh liveries.