Empty legs
Empty leg private jets
In short
What is an empty leg flight?
An empty leg is a flight an aircraft has to make anyway with nobody on board — flying out to collect its next passengers, or home after a drop-off. Operators may sell those flights below a normal charter price — often quoted at 25% to 75% less — because the alternative is flying them empty. They are one-way, their departure details are fixed by the operator, availability is limited, and a leg can change or be cancelled if the original booking does. The aircraft, the crew and the service are identical to a full-price charter.
What you give up is control. The route, the date and often the departure window belong to somebody else’s trip, and the flight can be cancelled outright if their plans change.
Where the discount comes from
An aircraft in the wrong place
A client charters London to Nice. The aircraft’s next booking starts in Geneva, so it has to fly Nice to Geneva regardless — with or without passengers on board. That middle sector is the empty leg, and the operator will take a quarter to three quarters of the normal price rather than fly it for nothing.
Which is also why the terms are what they are. The route, the date and the departure window belong to the two charters on either side of it. If the first client moves their trip, the sector in the middle moves or disappears with it.
Why we do not publish a list
Every broker’s public empty-leg list is mostly fiction by the time you read it. These flights appear with a day or two of notice, sell within hours, and disappear the moment the original charter shifts. A page of them is a page of prices that no longer exist, and it wastes your time to look at.
What works is the opposite direction: you tell us the route and the window you would accept, and we tell you the moment something matches. Operators release these legs to brokers before they reach any public listing, so being on the list that gets asked first is worth more than browsing one that is already stale.
When an empty leg is worth it
- Your dates can move. A day either side multiplies what is available to you many times over.
- You are flying a busy corridor. London–Nice, Geneva–London, Dubai–Riyadh, Teterboro–Palm Beach. Dense traffic means constant repositioning.
- You have a fallback. If the leg is cancelled the day before and you must still travel, the saving evaporates into a last-minute full charter.
- The group is small. You take the aircraft that happens to be repositioning, not the one sized to your party.
The aircraft is the same
You are not buying a lesser flight
An empty leg is discounted because of when and where it flies, not because of what it is. The aircraft, the crew, the catering and the terminal are identical to the full-price charter that created it — the operator is simply recovering cost on a sector it had already committed to.
Check empty leg availability
Tell us the route you would take at a lower price
Send the city pair and how flexible your dates are. We do not publish a list of legs that may already be gone; a broker checks what is actually positioning your way and comes back — typically within 15 minutes. If nothing matches, we price the trip as a normal charter instead of leaving you waiting.
- One-way
- A repositioning sector, in one direction only.
- Fixed details
- Departure airport, date and time are the operator’s.
- Limited
- Few legs, and each is sold once.
- Can change
- Subject to change or cancellation if the original charter moves.
Questions
About empty legs
- What is an empty leg flight?
- An empty leg is a repositioning flight an aircraft has to make anyway — flying empty to collect its next passengers, or home after a drop-off. Operators sell those seats at 25% to 75% below a normal charter. The trade-off is rigidity: the route, date and often the departure window are fixed by someone else’s trip, and the flight can be cancelled if the original charter changes.
- How far in advance do I need to book?
- Four to six hours is usually enough for a domestic or intra-European leg if an aircraft is already positioned nearby. Intercontinental flights need longer for crew duty time, overflight and landing permits. The genuine constraints are seasonal: Nice and Ibiza in July, Geneva in ski season, and Riyadh at any time because of permit lead times.
- How much does it cost to charter a private jet?
- There is no fixed price. As indicative starting points, light jets from about $3,200 per flight hour, super-midsize jets from about $6,000 per flight hour, heavy jets from about $8,000 per flight hour and ultra-long-range aircraft from about $11,500 per flight hour, plus positioning and ground handling at both ends. Each route page shows an indicative starting price for that trip. Those figures are starting prices, not quotes: the price of your flight is calculated individually and depends on aircraft availability, where the aircraft is positioned, the date, the operating company and airport charges.
- Do I pay before the aircraft is confirmed?
- No. Nothing is charged until the aircraft is confirmed with the operator and you have it in writing: the operating company and its AOC, the aircraft type and year, the registration where available, the operator’s safety audit status where it holds one, and the cancellation terms. You approve the quotation, payment follows, and flight documents arrive within the hour. For crypto payments we wait for one network confirmation on domestic legs and three on international ones.
- What happens to my money if the flight is cancelled?
- If the operator cancels or the aircraft goes technical, you are refunded in full through the same channel you paid, or we place you on a replacement aircraft — your choice. If you cancel, the operator’s cancellation terms apply; those terms are shown to you in writing before you pay, not buried afterwards. Crypto refunds are returned in the same asset at the original invoiced USD value.