1The short answer
We log a few thousand empty legs a month. In the thirty days to 3 September 2026 it was 3,052 new flights, every one of them taken from the charter operator that flies it. We do not read brokers, so nothing here is somebody reselling another company's aircraft with a margin on top.
Out of that flow, 2,264 flights are upcoming right now. 721 of them carry a price the operator has published, and those are what the per seat arithmetic below is built on. The rest say price on enquiry.
Across the legs priced in euros, the median works out at 780 euros a seat once the operator's price for the whole aircraft is divided by the seats they listed. The lowest on the board right now is 261 euros.
A worked example, from a flight we recorded in early September: a Cessna Citation CJ4 Gen 2 from Toulon to Nancy, nine seats, 3,900 euros for the aircraft. That is 433 euros each if all nine seats are taken, and 3,900 if you fly alone. The flight has long gone, which is the point of the next paragraph.
2What an empty leg costs by aircraft type
Medians of the euro-priced legs, only for types with at least three of them. The seat figure is the operator's own price divided by the seats the operator listed.
| Aircraft | Legs | Seats | Aircraft, EUR | Per seat, EUR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cessna Citation CJ4 Gen 2 | 35 | 9 | 5,100 | 567 |
| Dassault Falcon 8X | 6 | 14 | 17,300 | 1,236 |
| Cessna Citation CJ4 Gen2 | 5 | 9 | 5,200 | 578 |
| Dassault Falcon 7X | 5 | 14 | 17,300 | 1,331 |
| Embraer Legacy 650 | 5 | 13 | 10,400 | 800 |
Six legs is a small sample and a median of six is a weak number. It is shown with its count rather than hidden inside an average of everything.
The pattern is the one you would expect. A light jet with nine seats puts the seat under 600 euros. A large cabin Falcon or Legacy, with more seats but a far higher block cost, lands somewhere over 1,200. What changes the answer is not the size of the cabin, it is how full you can make it.
3Now the part nobody else prints
That median is a division, not a fare. The operator sells the aircraft, not the seat. In the example above, fly alone on that Citation and you pay 3,900 euros, so your seat cost 3,900 euros. The 433 exists only if nine of you get on.
So the honest version of the headline is this: an empty leg turns a private jet into something a group of eight or nine can split. That is the whole trick, and it is why the maths only ever works for people travelling together.
Two more things the number does not include. Operators quote the flight, and what sits on top of it, landing fees, handling, catering, sometimes a passenger tax, varies by airport and by operator. And an empty leg goes where the aircraft was already going, on the date it was already going, which is the price you actually pay for the discount.
One thing to be careful about. An empty leg is one way. There is no return, and there is no such thing as a return seat: the aircraft is repositioning, and where it goes next is the operator's business, not yours. On any given day only a small minority of the flights on our board have anything at all listed going back the other way inside the following week, and even those are separate flights, often from a different operator, that can sell or vanish on their own. Plan the way back as a scheduled flight, or as a second empty leg you find later, and treat it as a bonus if the timing ever lines up.
4What we cannot tell you
Of the 2,264 upcoming legs, 1,543 carry no published price at all. Their cards say price on enquiry, because that is what the operator published, and we would rather print that than invent a figure.
So every number on this page describes the 22 percent of the board that is priced. Whether the unpriced 78 percent would be cheaper or dearer, we do not know, and anyone who tells you they do is guessing.
5The cheapest seats on the board right now
This table is live. It reads our own listings when you open the page and divides each operator's published price by the seats they listed. Pick a currency: we do not convert between them here, because a converted figure is our arithmetic and the point of this page is the operator's.
| Route | Aircraft | Seats | Aircraft | Per seat | Departs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loading the board. | |||||
Listed price and listed seat count, exactly as the operator published them. A listing can be sold or withdrawn between our last check and your enquiry.
6How long an empty leg stays available
We have watched 622 legs disappear from operator sites before their departure date. Half of them were gone within 4.5 days of first appearing. A quarter went in under 2.8 days. Fifty four vanished in less than 24 hours.
That is the real cost of an empty leg, and it is not money. The flight you want is on the board for a few days and then it is somebody else's.
7How far ahead empty legs are published
Across 3,928 legs we have timestamps for, the median appeared 8.7 days before departure. 1,780 of them, close to half, appeared inside the last week.
Which means searching two months out is mostly wasted effort. The list you want does not exist yet. Set an alert on the route and let it come to you, or check the city pages in the week you actually want to fly.
8So is an empty leg worth it
If you are one person with a fixed date and a fixed destination, an empty leg is a bad tool and a scheduled airline is a better one.
If you are six or eight people who can move a day either way, and you are looking at a route that already has traffic, the arithmetic on this page is real, and the figures above move with the board rather than with the date on this article.
Where these figures come from
Every headline number on this page is read from our own record of what charter operators published, as the page loads, not from an industry estimate and not from a snapshot taken on some earlier date. Prices are the operator's own figure for the whole aircraft, and per seat is that figure divided by the seat count the operator listed, across the upcoming flights that carry both.
We use medians rather than averages, because a single 130,000 dollar Global would drag an average anywhere. The live table above reads the same listings as they stand right now. The written figures are fixed to the date at the top of the page, and when we rerun them they will be restated with a new date rather than quietly edited.
9Questions people ask
How much does an empty leg private jet cost?
The operator publishes one price for the whole aircraft, one way. Divide it by the seats they listed and you get the per seat figure. The live median and the lowest on the board right now are at the top of this guide, and they move as operators publish.
How much are empty leg flights compared with a normal charter?
We do not record what the same flight would cost as a full charter, so we cannot give a discount percentage. What we can say is the operator's own published figure: on our board the median priced empty leg in euros is 5,400 for the whole aircraft, one way, and in pounds it is 13,000.
Can you buy empty seats on a private jet?
Not on an empty leg. The operator sells the whole aircraft, so an empty seat on a private jet is not sold on its own here. The per seat figures on this page are the listed price divided by the listed seats, which only holds if a group fills the cabin.
Can I buy a single seat on an empty leg?
No. Operators sell the whole aircraft. The per seat figure is the listed price divided by the listed seat count, so it only holds if the cabin is full.
Do all empty legs show a price?
No. Most of the board says price on enquiry, because that is what the operator published. The live split between priced and on enquiry is at the top of this guide.
Can you book a return on an empty leg?
No. An empty leg is one way and there is no such thing as a return seat. On any given day only a small minority of the board has anything at all listed going back the other way inside the following week, and those are separate flights that can be sold or withdrawn on their own.
How far in advance are empty legs published?
Across 3,928 legs with timestamps, the median appeared 8.7 days before departure and 1,780 of them appeared within the last week before the flight.
10Related
See the last minute empty leg flights for everything departing inside seven days, browse every city on the board, or go by aircraft type if the cabin matters more than the destination. If you operate aircraft and want your legs listed, list your empty legs.