  We investigate the observed muon deficit in air shower simulations when
compared to ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) data. Gleaned from the observed
enhancement of strangeness production in ALICE data, the associated $\pi
\leftrightarrow K$ swap is taken as a cornerstone to resolve the muon puzzle
via its corresponding impact on the shower evolution. We develop a
phenomenological model in terms of the $\pi \leftrightarrow K$ swapping
probability $F_s$. We provide a parametrization of $F_s (E^{\rm (proj)}, \eta)$
that can accommodate the UHECR data, where $E^{\rm (proj)}$ is the projectile
energy and $\eta$ the pseudorapidity. We also explore a future game plan for
model improvement using the colossal amount of data to be collected by LHC
neutrino detectors at the Forward Physics Facility (FPF). We calculate the
corresponding sensitivity to $F_s$ and show that the FPF experiments will be
able to probe the model phase space.
