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?

Roughly $3,200–$4,800 per flight hour on a light jet, $6,000–$8,500 on a super-midsize, $8,000–$11,500 on a heavy jet and $12,000–$18,000 on an ultra-long-range aircraft, plus ground handling at both ends. A short European hop such as London to Nice typically lands between $14,000 and $25,000; Dubai to London on a heavy jet is usually $65,000 to $105,000. Prices move with where the aircraft happens to be that week, which is why we quote a real number per request rather than a rate card.

When do I have to pay, and what do I get first?

Nothing is charged until you have the aircraft in writing. Before you pay we send the operator name, the tail number, the aircraft type and year, and the operator’s safety rating. Payment follows that confirmation, and flight documents arrive within the hour. For crypto payments we wait for one network confirmation on domestic legs and three on international ones.

Services

Empty leg flights

In short

How do I get an empty leg flight?

Tell a broker the route you would take and how flexible your dates are, and wait to be told when one appears. Empty legs are repositioning sectors an aircraft has to fly anyway, sold at 25% to 75% below a normal charter. They surface with a day or two of notice and sell within hours, which is why browsing a public list is almost always browsing flights that no longer exist.

01How it works

Arranging empty leg flights

What you are giving up

Control. The route, the date and often the departure window belong to the charter on either side of the empty sector. If the original client moves their trip, your flight moves or disappears with it — usually with compensation or a replacement offered, but not always with enough notice to matter. An empty leg is a good way to save money and a poor way to make a meeting.

Where they actually appear

Dense corridors, because that is where aircraft reposition constantly: London–Nice, Geneva–London, Paris–Nice, Dubai–Riyadh, Teterboro–Palm Beach. On a thin route an empty leg may not appear for months. If your city pair is not a busy one, waiting for a discount is usually worse value than simply booking the trip.

How the discount is actually set

Not by a rate card. The operator is deciding what it would rather do with an aircraft that is flying regardless: an empty sector costs it fuel and crew time with no revenue, so anything above that is better than nothing. How far above depends on how likely the leg is to sell, how close to departure it is, and whether the operator has a relationship with the broker asking. A leg on a dense corridor two days out might go at 40% of the normal charter; the same leg four hours out, with nobody else asking, can go lower. This is also why published discount percentages are close to meaningless — the number depends on the day. What you should compare is not the discount but the price against a normal charter of the same aircraft on the same route, which we will show you alongside.

02Constraints

Worth knowing before you ask

Cancellation by the operator is a real possibility, not a formality.
You take the aircraft that is repositioning, not the one sized to your party.
Departure times are set by the surrounding charters and can move by hours.

03The aircraft

Aircraft typically used

Drawn to one scale from real airframe dimensions. Which one suits your trip depends on the leg and the load rather than the passenger count alone.

Light jets
6–8 pax · 52 ft span
Midsize jets
7–9 pax · 56 ft span
Super-midsize jets
8–10 pax · 69 ft span
Heavy jets
10–14 pax · 64 ft span

04Your part

What to send with the request

Every service has two or three details that change the answer entirely. Including them in the first message turns one exchange into a quote instead of four.

The city pair, in both directions: Repositioning happens in whichever direction the aircraft needs to go, and a leg you would accept reversed doubles your chances of a match.
How flexible the dates are: A day either side multiplies what is available many times over. Being specific about the flexibility is more useful than saying "flexible".
Your fallback: If the leg is cancelled the day before and you must still travel, say so. We will price the ordinary charter alongside, so a cancellation is an inconvenience rather than a crisis.

05Before you pay

What we commit to on every booking

We have no completed flights to point at yet, and we are not going to invent any. What we can do is put the terms in writing before you ask for them.

What we commit to

Nothing is charged before the aircraft is confirmed.
You receive the operating carrier’s legal name, its AOC number and the aircraft registration in writing before any invoice or wallet address is issued. If those three things are not in front of you, you have not been asked to pay yet.
One commission, inside the price you were quoted.
Our margin is already in the number you agreed to. There is no second invoice, no booking fee added at the end, and no separate charge for arranging the flight. If the total moves after you have accepted it, the reason is a change you asked for.
No surcharge on any payment method, including cryptocurrency.
Card, bank transfer, USDT, Bitcoin and cash settle at the same price. We do not price crypto as a premium service, and we do not discount it to move you onto a rail that is harder to reverse.
If the operator cancels, you choose the remedy — not us.
Aircraft go technical and operators occasionally fail. When that happens before departure you are offered a replacement aircraft on equivalent terms or a full refund, and the choice between them is yours. We do not get to decide that a substitute was good enough.

These form part of our terms of business. If any of them changes, the change is dated there rather than made quietly here.

06Get a price

Tell us the trip

Route, date and how many people is enough to start. Anything specific to this service — an animal, an equipment list, a medical report — can follow in the same thread.

Questions

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?: Roughly $3,200–$4,800 per flight hour on a light jet, $6,000–$8,500 on a super-midsize, $8,000–$11,500 on a heavy jet and $12,000–$18,000 on an ultra-long-range aircraft, plus ground handling at both ends. A short European hop such as London to Nice typically lands between $14,000 and $25,000; Dubai to London on a heavy jet is usually $65,000 to $105,000. Prices move with where the aircraft happens to be that week, which is why we quote a real number per request rather than a rate card.
When do I have to pay, and what do I get first?: Nothing is charged until you have the aircraft in writing. Before you pay we send the operator name, the tail number, the aircraft type and year, and the operator’s safety rating. Payment follows that confirmation, and flight documents arrive within the hour. For crypto payments we wait for one network confirmation on domestic legs and three on international ones.