An empty leg is a private aircraft repositioning between two airports without passengers — usually after dropping off a charter, or before picking up the next one. The aircraft is already crewed, fuelled and slotted.
Because the operator's marginal cost is largely fixed, an empty leg is typically sold at 40% to 75% below full charter price. The aircraft category is often above what the same budget would otherwise reach.
Empty legs have hard constraints: the route, the aircraft, the date and the time window are not negotiable. Flexibility on any one of those four dimensions multiplies the opportunities available.
The European corridors with the deepest empty leg liquidity are Nice ↔ Northern Europe, Milan ↔ Ibiza, London ↔ Geneva, Le Bourget ↔ Mediterranean, and Dubai ↔ European hubs in shoulder season.
Practical reality: empty legs surface and disappear within hours. Members on a curated alert list see them before broker marketplaces; the broker marketplace sees them before the public.
