Empty legs are genuinely the cheapest way to fly private — and genuinely the least predictable. This article looks at both sides honestly, drawing on a widely read industry thread on r/PrivateJetCharters where an operator, a broker and several travellers compare notes. The short version: the discount is real (typically 25–75% off a one-way charter), but so are the cancellations, the fixed schedule and the 24–48 hour booking window. Whether an empty leg is a great deal or a wasted afternoon depends almost entirely on the operator and on the specific offer — which is why it pays to have someone who knows both.
Ask ten people in private aviation about empty legs and you will get two camps. One says they are the best-kept secret in the industry; the other says they barely exist anymore. Both are partly right. We sell empty legs every week at RentJet, so we have no interest in talking anyone out of them — but we also have no interest in a client standing at an FBO waiting for an aircraft that was quietly sold to someone else. Here is how empty legs really work, what the professionals say when they think nobody is selling to them, and how to make the odds work in your favour.
Key Takeaways
- An empty leg is a repositioning flight created by someone else's booking: the route, date, time and aircraft are fixed before you ever see it
- The discount is real — typically 25–75% below a comparable one-way charter — but it is rarely the '80% off' of social media, because fuel, crew, maintenance and fees still have to be covered
- Empty legs can be cancelled with no warning right up to departure if the original trip changes or the operator sells the aircraft into a better-paying flight
- The realistic booking window is usually 24–48 hours before departure; flights advertised weeks out are the most likely to disappear
- Operators rarely price an empty leg 'dirt cheap' even when the leg is already paid for — it would undercut their full-fare clients and the direct operating cost never goes away
- Airports can often be negotiated: an operator repositioning New York → Miami may accept Baltimore → Jacksonville for a modest surcharge
- Empty legs suit travellers who are flexible on timing and have no non-refundable plans on the other end; they do not suit fixed-date business travel
- Most disappointments come from stale listings and unknown operators — a broker who verifies the flight before you plan around it removes most of the risk
Comparison at a Glance
| Empty leg | One-way charter | By-the-seat empty leg | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price vs. full charter | 25–75% lower | Full price, negotiable | Priced per seat, fixed by the operator |
| Choose route and time | No — fixed by the operator | Yes | No |
| Choose aircraft | No | Yes | No |
| Risk of cancellation | Real, until departure | Very low | Real, until departure |
| Booking window | Often 24–48 h | Days to months | Often 24–48 h |
| Best for | Flexible travellers, spontaneous trips | Fixed dates, business travel | Solo travellers and couples |
What an empty leg actually is
A private jet flies passengers from Dubai to London. Its next booked trip starts in Geneva two days later. Unless the operator finds a paying passenger for London → Geneva, the aircraft flies that sector empty — a "repositioning" or "empty" leg. Rather than fly it for nothing, the operator offers it at a discount. That is the whole mechanism, and everything good and bad about empty legs follows from it.
In July 2025 an industry professional posting as The-jet-guy wrote a post titled "Truth about Empty Legs" on r/PrivateJetCharters that became one of the most upvoted threads in that community. An operator, a broker and a number of travellers joined in. It is the most candid public conversation about empty legs we have seen, and it lines up closely with what we see on our own desk — so we will quote it throughout.
"Empty legs exist only when another booked trip creates them. This means they aren't created with your needs in mind."
Read the post →The advantages — and they are real
The price
This is the reason empty legs exist as a topic at all. On our own listings, whole-aircraft empty legs typically sit 40–70% below what the same sector would cost as a bespoke one-way charter. One of the more measured contributors in the thread put the industry-wide range at 25 to 75 percent below chartering the jet outright. That matches our experience: a G450 appearing at well under half of its usual one-way price is not unusual. Eighty percent off is.
The same aircraft, the same crew, the same terminal
Nothing about the flight is downgraded. You use the private terminal, the crew is the operator's regular crew, and the aircraft is whatever was scheduled — sometimes a heavier, longer-range jet than you would have chartered yourself for that distance.
Spontaneous trips become possible
For a certain kind of traveller, empty legs are less about saving money on a planned trip and more about taking a trip that would not otherwise happen: a Thursday afternoon Dubai → Maldives, a Genoa → Milan hop, a weekend in Nice because the aircraft was going there anyway.
Airports are more negotiable than people think
One commenter, a broker, pointed out something most travellers never ask about: the departure and arrival airports of an empty leg are often flexible. His example: if an operator is repositioning New York → Miami, they may well accept Baltimore → Jacksonville, factoring in the extra cost. The same is true in our region — a Dubai → London repositioning can sometimes become Abu Dhabi → London or Dubai → Farnborough for a modest adjustment. You will not see that option on any website; you get it by asking.
The drawbacks — and they are also real
It is not built around you
The route, the date, the departure time and the aircraft are decided before you see the listing. Minor time adjustments are sometimes possible; changing the day is usually not. If your plans are fixed, an empty leg is a lottery ticket, not a travel plan.
It can vanish, right up to departure
This is the point the original post made most forcefully, and it is the one we most want our clients to hear. The empty leg exists because of another booking. If that booking changes or cancels, the empty leg is gone. If the operator finds a full-fare trip that fits the aircraft better, the empty leg is gone too. As one experienced commenter put it:
"A true must-move one way often falls apart, sometimes leaving an excited client at the FBO fuming."
The further out the empty leg is advertised, the more likely this is. A flight listed three weeks ahead gives the operator three weeks to sell the aircraft into a better position. A broker in the thread noted that these days you often have to wait until 24–48 hours before the flight to see whether an "empty" option is really available. We would put it slightly differently: the flight can be real three weeks out, but you should not book non-refundable hotels around it until it is confirmed close to departure.
It is cheaper, not free — and operators have reasons not to go lower
A traveller in the thread asked the obvious question: if the leg is flying anyway, why is the price not close to zero? The most upvoted reply came from someone on the operator side:
"Because the operator has already made their money on the leg. If they charge a dirt cheap price it will negatively affect the perception from full paying customers."
He went on to list the costs that do not disappear just because the leg is "paid for": wear and tear, consumables, crew duty time, extra FBO fees, and owner-imposed minimum rates on managed aircraft. A former operator in the same thread was blunter still — the direct operating cost is always the direct operating cost, and your empty leg price will never go below it. Understanding that helps you negotiate the right things (catering, positioning, airports) rather than the wrong one (a price below cost that no operator will accept).
Stale listings waste more time than cancellations
The single most common complaint we hear is not "my flight was cancelled" but "I called about the flight on the website and it had been sold for two days". Many aggregator sites republish operator lists on a lazy schedule. A commenter who clearly works with this data made exactly this point: flexibility does not help if what you are looking at is out of date. This is a solvable problem — see below — but it is why "empty legs barely exist" is a common feeling among people who only ever see them after they are gone.
So who are empty legs actually for?
The broker in the thread summarised it well: empty legs are only a good deal if you are totally flexible — no hotel reservations or plans that cannot be cancelled without penalty on your day of travel, and a plan for the return that will not cost you if the outbound falls through. Add to that: travellers with pets (always tell the operator; not every aircraft allows them), solo travellers and couples who can use a by-the-seat flight, and anyone whose "trip" is really "wherever the aircraft is going". If that is you, empty legs are the best value in private aviation. If your board meeting is at 09:00 on Tuesday, book a one-way charter and ask us to watch for an empty leg as a bonus, not as the plan.
It depends on the operator — and on the offer
Here is the part the thread only hints at, and the part we deal with every day. "Empty leg" is not a standard product with standard terms. Some operators confirm a leg the moment you request it and honour it unless the aircraft goes technical. Others list it, keep selling the aircraft elsewhere, and cancel on you without a second thought. Some by-the-seat offers are firm; others are "subject to minimum passengers". Some prices include positioning, handling and taxes; some do not. Two flights that look identical on a listing page can be completely different propositions.
The traveller cannot see any of this from the outside. A broker who works with these operators daily can — which is why the most sensible comments in the thread, from both sides, ended up saying the same thing: find someone who sources these flights for a living and let them tell you which ones are worth planning around.
How we handle empty legs at RentJet
- Live listings, not stale ones. Our empty legs page is refreshed from operator data every 10 minutes, duplicates are removed, and flights too close to departure to book are hidden.
- Verification before you plan. When you request a flight, we confirm with the operator that it is still available and at what final price before you book anything around it.
- A plan B. If an empty leg you were counting on is cancelled, we already have the alternative one-way quote on the same sector — often not far off the empty leg price once the terms are compared honestly.
- The right questions. Airports, pets, catering, minimum passengers, what happens on cancellation — we ask the operator so you do not have to.
Stop refreshing pages: let the flights come to you
The biggest practical fix for the "empty legs barely exist" problem is simply to see them in time. That is why we built Empty Legs Radar, a free Telegram bot: tell it your route and your dates once — "Dubai → London, 15 to 30 October", or "Dubai → Anywhere" — and it messages you within minutes of a matching flight being listed, with the price and a link to request it. It watches the same live data as our website, every 10 minutes, and it never sends the same flight twice. For a flexible traveller it turns empty legs from a lottery into something close to a strategy.
Open @emptylegsradar_bot in Telegram, send /track, and pick your route. And if you are not sure whether a particular offer is a good one — ask us. That question is what we are here for.
Source thread: "Truth about Empty Legs" on r/PrivateJetCharters (July 2025). Quotations are brief excerpts, attributed to their authors and linked to the original comments.
“An empty leg is not a product, it is a moment. The aircraft is real, the discount is real, and so is the possibility that the moment passes before you act — or that the operator changes their mind. Our job is to tell you which flights are worth planning around and which are not, and to have a plan B ready when the answer changes at the last minute.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Are empty legs really cheaper?
Yes. Whole-aircraft empty legs typically cost 25–75% less than a comparable one-way charter, and by-the-seat empty legs let you pay for a seat rather than the whole aircraft. They are rarely the 80% off promised on social media, because fuel, crew, maintenance and airport fees still have to be covered.
Can an empty leg be cancelled after I book it?
It can, right up to departure, if the booking that created it changes or the operator sells the aircraft into a better-paying flight. How likely that is depends heavily on the operator. We confirm availability with the operator before you commit and keep an alternative quote ready.
How far in advance can I book an empty leg?
Flights are listed anywhere from hours to weeks ahead, but the further out they are, the less reliable they become. In practice the realistic window is often 24–48 hours before departure. You can track a route in advance with our Telegram bot and act quickly when a flight appears.
Can I change the airports or the departure time of an empty leg?
Often, within limits. Operators repositioning between two cities may accept nearby airports for a modest surcharge, and small time adjustments are sometimes possible. Changing the date is usually not. Ask before assuming either way.
Why don't operators price empty legs close to zero if the flight is already paid for?
Because the direct operating cost — fuel, engine and maintenance reserves, crew duty, handling fees — is incurred whether or not passengers are on board, and because a near-free price would undercut full-fare clients. Managed aircraft often also have owner-imposed minimum rates.
Who should not rely on empty legs?
Anyone with fixed dates, a meeting on the other end, or non-refundable arrangements around the flight. For those trips, book a one-way charter and treat any empty leg that appears as a bonus.
How do I find empty legs that are actually still available?
Use a source that refreshes from operator data frequently and removes sold or expired flights — our empty legs page updates every 10 minutes — and set up alerts for your route with the Empty Legs Radar bot so you see new flights within minutes, not days.
Pavel Bukreev
Pavel Bukreev is the founder of RentJet and the author of the Empty Legs Radar concept — a Telegram bot that watches private jet repositioning flights for a traveller's exact route and dates. He writes about private aviation from the client's side of the table: what actually works, what is oversold, and how to get the most out of every flight.