Guide
An empty leg is a private jet flight that is going to happen with nobody on board, unless somebody buys it. That is the whole meaning. The rest of this page is how such a flight comes to exist, what it costs, what the catches are, and how to find one, with the numbers from our own board rather than a broker's brochure.
Updated . Board figures from September 2026. The live list on the home page is live.
A charter aircraft does not live where its clients are. It flies out to collect them, drops them somewhere, and then has to get back to base or on to the next booking. Those connecting sectors fly with an empty cabin. The operator has to make them anyway, so the fuel, the crew and the fees are already spent. Selling the empty cabin for whatever it will fetch is better than flying it for nothing.
That sold sector is an empty leg. Crews and American brokers call it a deadhead, operators sometimes say positioning flight or repositioning flight, and a few brokers say open leg. Same flight, and the glossary has every name. Sold as a charter it is an empty leg charter, which is a normal charter on a sector that already exists.
Take a nine seat Citation based in Belgium. A client books it from Wevelgem to Cannes on Friday. The aircraft flies them down full and comes back on Saturday empty, because nobody booked Cannes to Wevelgem on that day. The operator publishes the Saturday sector on their website: Cannes to Wevelgem, the date, the type, nine seats, and either a price or price on enquiry. That listing is an empty leg. We read it, record it, and put it on the board with the operator's own words.
It happens thousands of times a month. In the thirty days to early September 2026 we recorded 3,052 new empty legs from the operators we read, and our board holds around 1,100 upcoming ones at any moment.
Where the operator publishes a price it is for the whole aircraft, one way. Across the legs on our board priced in euros the median is 5,400 for the aircraft, which divided by the seats the operator listed is 622 a seat; the cheapest seat when we read it was 433, Toulon to Nancy on a Citation. Across those priced in pounds the median is 13,000 and 1,278 a seat.
Most legs carry no price at all: 848 of 1,091 said price on enquiry when we read the board, and in the United States it was 653 of 677. The full table by aircraft type, and what the per seat number does and does not mean, is in how much an empty leg private jet costs.
It is one way. The aircraft is repositioning, and there is no return and no such thing as a return seat. We counted: only 208 of 1,097 upcoming legs have anything at all listed in the opposite direction inside a week. One way private jet flights goes through what to do about that.
The operator sets everything. Route, date and aircraft are fixed; you fit into a flight that already exists. If you need Tuesday and the leg is Wednesday, it is not your leg.
It can disappear. We have watched 622 empty legs vanish from operator sites before their departure date. Half of them lasted under 4.5 days on the board, and 54 were gone inside 24 hours. A listing is a strong indication, not a guarantee, and the enquiry is what confirms it.
Search the live list by departure, destination or date, or start from a place: every city and country on the board has its own page with a live list. If nothing fits, set a route alert: close to half of the legs we record appear inside the final week before departure, so the one you want is more likely to be published next week than to be sitting there today.
When you find one, the enquiry goes straight to the operator that flies it. We are a listing service, not a broker, we take no commission, and the operator quotes you directly.
An empty leg is a private jet flight the operator has to make with nobody in the cabin, to reposition the aircraft, sold at a discount. The operator sets the route, the date and the aircraft, and it is one way.
Because the operator is flying the sector anyway. The cost is already committed, so any revenue from the empty cabin is better than none. Where operators publish a price on our board the median in euros is 5,400 for the whole aircraft, 622 a seat.
Yes. You enquire with the operator that flies it, and they confirm the leg and quote. On this site the enquiry goes straight to them, with no commission in between.
No. The flight depends on the charter it is attached to, and it can be sold, cancelled or rescheduled. We have watched 622 legs disappear before their departure date, half of them inside 4.5 days of appearing.
A charter drops its passengers somewhere and the aircraft has to fly on or fly home empty. The operator publishes that sector with the date, the type and the seats, usually at a discount. You enquire, the operator confirms the leg is still available and quotes you for the whole aircraft, and you fly the route and the date as published.
In aviation an empty leg, also called a deadhead, positioning flight or ferry flight, is any sector flown without passengers to move the aircraft where it is needed next. On a private jet it is the same flight offered for sale, which is what this site lists.
An empty leg charter is the sale of one of those repositioning sectors as a charter flight. It is the same aircraft and the same crew as a normal charter, at the operator's price for that one way sector rather than for a round trip planned around you.
Operators publish them on their own websites, and this site reads those pages several times a day and lists them in one place, with search by city, country and date. In the thirty days to early September 2026 we recorded 3,052 new ones. You can also set a route alert and be told when a leg on your route appears.
Find the leg, send the enquiry, and the operator that flies it answers you directly with availability and a price for the whole aircraft. On this site there is no broker and no commission between you and the operator.