Are empty legs worth it? Sometimes. Here is how to tell whether yours is one of them.
An empty leg is the most talked about idea in private aviation and the least well understood. It is a real saving on a real aircraft, and it is also somebody else's trip that you are borrowing the return of. Both halves of that sentence matter.
Where they come from
An aircraft has to get home somehow
Aircraft do not live where charters begin. A jet based at Farnborough takes a client to Nice on a Friday, and unless somebody has booked the return, it flies back to Farnborough empty or repositions somewhere it can earn. That flight is going to happen whether or not anybody is aboard, and the fuel, the crew and the landing fees are already committed. The operator would rather sell it for something than fly it for nothing.
That is the whole mechanism. It is why the trade calls them positioning flights as often as empty legs, and it is why they appear where private travel is lopsided: London to and from Nice, Geneva, Paris, Palma and Ibiza, heavily in the ski season and through the summer, and around big sporting and business weeks when a great many aircraft fly one way on Thursday and the other way on Sunday.
The saving is genuine and it can be substantial. What you are buying, though, is the operator's problem rather than your itinerary, and every one of the trade offs below follows from that single fact. Odyssey arranges charters, so an empty leg is something we watch for on your behalf rather than something we hold in stock.
The trade
What you get, and what you give up for it
| What you give up | Why | How much it usually matters |
|---|---|---|
| The date | The flight exists because of somebody else's booking. It happens on their day, not yours. | This is the big one. If your date is fixed, an empty leg is a lottery ticket rather than a plan. |
| The departure time | The aircraft cannot leave before the original charter has finished and the crew have turned it round. | Usually a window of a few hours rather than a precise time, and it can move again close to the day. |
| The airports | The route runs between the field the aircraft is at and the field it needs to reach. Sometimes a nearby alternative works, often it does not. | Moderate. London has enough options that a swap is sometimes possible. Alpine and island fields rarely allow it. |
| The aircraft | You take the type that happens to be making the journey, which may be larger or smaller than you would have chosen. | Larger is a pleasant surprise. Smaller is a luggage problem, so check the hold before you accept. |
| Certainty | If the original client moves or cancels, the positioning flight moves or disappears with them, occasionally at very short notice. | The trade off people underestimate. A cancelled empty leg leaves you needing a full charter at short notice. |
| Time to decide | Most appear days ahead and are taken within hours of being offered. | You need someone authorised to say yes quickly, and passport details already to hand. |
What you do not give up is the aircraft, the crew or the service. An empty leg is a normal charter flight on a normal aircraft with a normal crew. The discount is on the circumstances, not on the standard.
Who they suit
The traveller who actually benefits
Empty legs reward flexibility above everything else, and flexibility is a real asset that not everybody has. Be honest about whether you do.
- You have a window rather than a date. Any of three days in the second half of the month is a workable brief. Tuesday the fourteenth is not
- You would be happy to fly commercially if nothing appears, so a blank result costs you nothing but a shrug
- Your party is small and travels light, which lets you take whatever aircraft turns up rather than only the right one
- You are going somewhere that generates one-way traffic: the Alps in winter, the Mediterranean in summer, a city hosting something large
- You can be reached and can decide in an hour, with passport details ready to send rather than to gather
- The journey matters but the timing does not, which describes a leisure trip far more often than a business one
When to stop looking
The cases where a normal charter is simply better
If you are flying to a meeting, a court date, a wedding, a race or a connection, do not build the plan on an empty leg. The saving is never worth the tail risk of the original client changing their mind, and the cost of solving that at two days' notice will exceed anything you saved. The same applies to groups, to anyone with awkward luggage, to pets, and to passengers who need a specific cabin.
There is also a false economy that catches people out. An empty leg into an airport forty miles the wrong side of your destination can cost you an hour on the road at the end, and an unusual departure time can cost you a hotel night at the start. Price the whole door to door journey, including the car at each end, before deciding you are ahead. Our private jet transfers page explains how the ground legs are timed to the tail number rather than to a schedule.
And if what matters is the date rather than the money, look at last-minute charter instead, which is a different thing entirely: a full charter arranged quickly. If what matters is predictable cost across a year, jet cards and programmes answer that better than chasing positioning flights ever will.
How to get offered one
Be the client who is easy to place
- 01
Register the route rather than the trip
Tell us where you would go, roughly when, how many of you and how much luggage, and leave it with us. A standing brief is worth far more than a search on the day, because the good ones are gone before a public list is updated.
- 02
Widen the airports yourself
If you will accept any of the London fields, or Nice as well as Cannes, say so at the outset. Every extra field you accept multiplies the number of flights that could work for you.
- 03
Have the details ready before the offer comes
Full names as they appear in each passport, dates of birth, nationalities, passport numbers and expiry dates. The flight that gets away is usually the one where the paperwork took a day.
- 04
Decide who can say yes
One named person, reachable, with the authority to confirm. An offer that has to travel through three people is an offer somebody else takes.
Reading the offers
Three things that are not quite empty legs
The first is a stale list. Public listings of available legs are often days old, and a flight that is still shown may have been sold, moved or cancelled. A list is a marketing tool, not an inventory, and the only way to know whether a leg is real is for somebody to ask the operator that morning.
The second is one-way pricing that is not a positioning flight at all. Operators sometimes offer a reduced one-way rate on a route they want to be on, which is a perfectly good thing to buy and is more reliable than a true empty leg, but it is a different product and the saving is usually smaller. It is worth knowing which you have been offered.
The third is a seat rather than an aircraft. Shared arrangements, where individual seats on a private flight are sold, exist in various forms and are not the same as chartering the aircraft. Who else is aboard, and what happens if the flight does not fill, are the two questions to ask. If you want the aircraft to yourself, say so and we will not offer you anything else. See how private jet charter works for the shape of a normal booking, and the cost guide for what makes up a quotation.
Putting it to work
We will watch a route for you
Tell us where you would go at short notice and we will keep the brief open and come to you when something fits, with the car at both ends quoted alongside it. There is no obligation and nothing is held or charged.
Questions people ask
About empty legs
How much do they actually save?
It varies far too much to publish a figure. The saving depends on the route, the operator, how close to the day it is and how badly the aircraft needs to move. We tell you the number for the specific flight in front of you.
Can you promise to find one?
No, and nobody honestly can. They appear when they appear. We can tell you quickly whether your route and your window make one likely, which is a more useful answer than an assurance.
Can I change the time or the airport?
Occasionally, by a little. It depends on the operator's own plan for the aircraft, the crew's duty limits and the airport's hours. Always worth asking, never worth assuming.
Is the aircraft older or the service reduced?
No. It is the same aircraft, crew and standard the previous client had. The only difference is which direction it is flying and why.
What if it is cancelled after I have confirmed?
You are told at once and your money is not kept. We will look for an alternative and quote a normal charter, but the saving will have gone with the flight, which is the risk you accept when you take one.
Can you arrange the cars as well?
Yes, and we would encourage it on an empty leg, because the times move. Our own cars and chauffeurs are in London and Manchester, and elsewhere we arrange them through operators we know.
Register a route
Where would you go at short notice?
Give us the route, the window, the number of passengers and the luggage, and we will keep it open and come to you when something fits. Nothing is booked or charged online, and there is no commitment in asking.
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