Empty legs & positioned fares
Fly When the
Aircraft Is
Already Going
Many one-way charters create a positioning sector before or after the passenger flight. If your plans happen to line up with one, you fly the same aircraft for a fraction of the price.
Three ways to catch a cheaper flight
They are different things and the industry tends to blur them. Here is what each one actually is.
1 · Empty leg
Fixed date, fixed route, short notice. Priced well below a normal charter because the sector is happening either way. The trade-off is real: it is tied to somebody else’s itinerary, so it can move or vanish if their plans change.
2 · Positioned fare
Not an empty leg — a normal charter, but without the positioning cost, because the aircraft has just dropped someone else nearby. You choose the timing within a window. Cheaper than a cold charter, far more reliable than an empty leg.
3 · Shared rotation
You fly out on the Friday, somebody else flies home on the Sunday. Neither of you pays for an empty sector and neither pays for the crew to sit in a hotel. This is the one that saves the most, and the only way it happens is if I know both halves of the demand in advance.
Why it matters
At a busy summer airport the aircraft often cannot stay. Either it flies two empty sectors or the crew sit in a hotel at peak-season rates for several days. Somebody pays for that. Filling the leg is how it stops being you.
Why we do not publish speculative legs
Many published empty-leg lists are stale, and some show flights with only a chance of operating. By the time a genuine leg is worth publishing it is usually spoken for, so a public list would mostly show you flights that no longer exist or may never fly.
The useful version is the other way round. Save your route and how flexible you are, and you will hear from a pilot only when a verified empty leg or positioned aircraft matches it. That is also how shared rotations get built — two halves can only be matched if both are known.
Being honest about the trade-off
Empty legs move. If the original trip shifts by a day, so does the leg, and sometimes it disappears altogether. If you are travelling to a wedding or a closing, book a normal charter. If you are flexible, this is the best value in private aviation.
Flying home from somewhere else
Worth knowing: an aircraft often ends a trip in one place and needs to be somewhere else next. If it has just dropped passengers in Ibiza and is due elsewhere, it can often collect from Palma, Nice or Malaga on the way — and it can drop you at whichever airport suits, not only the one it started from. On UK returns, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester and Birmingham are frequently better answers than London.
Current legs
What is
on the board
Loading…
Save this route
Get told when
a real flight matches
Choose where from, where to and how flexible you are. When a verified empty leg or positioned aircraft matches, a pilot messages you on WhatsApp or by email with the times and price. Nothing speculative, no newsletter.
Common questions
Empty leg
questions
How much cheaper are empty legs?
Often substantially, because the sector is flying regardless, with the deepest discounts usually closest to departure. The saving depends on the operator and how close to departure the leg is offered. A positioned fare saves less but is far more dependable.
How much notice do I get?
Usually days rather than weeks. Repositioning legs firm up as the surrounding trips confirm, so the useful window is often two to fourteen days out.
Can an empty leg be cancelled?
Yes. It exists because of somebody else’s trip, and if that trip moves, the leg moves with it, and some legs do not happen at all. For anything unmissable, book a normal charter.
Am I buying a seat or the aircraft?
The aircraft. You are chartering the whole thing for you and your party, up to nine passengers — not buying an individual seat alongside strangers.
What is a shared rotation?
Two separate charters on opposite legs of the same trip — one party out, another back. Neither pays for an empty sector or for crew waiting. It only works if both halves are known in advance, which is exactly what the register above is for.
Can you pick me up from a different airport?
Often, yes. If the aircraft is routing back to the UK it can collect from a nearby airport on the way, and it can drop you at any UK airport rather than the one you left from.
Book direct with a pilot
Or just ask
what is going where
If your dates are close, it is quicker to ask than to wait for a match.