Airline tickets are sold on a fixed timetable. Private jets are not: an aircraft flies where a charter client needs it, and then it has to get to its next job. When that positioning flight carries no passengers it is called an empty leg, and operators often sell it at a reduced price rather than fly it empty. This guide explains how that differs from buying a seat on a scheduled flight and what the recent data shows.
What is an empty leg?
An empty leg is a one-way private jet flight that has to happen anyway. A client flies from Paris to London; the aircraft must return to its base or go on to the next client. That return flight is the empty leg. The route and the time are decided by the operator’s schedule, not by the buyer.
How is it different from an airline ticket?
- No fixed timetable. Empty legs appear at short notice and for specific dates only.
- Seat or whole aircraft. Some flights are sold by the seat, others only as a whole aircraft. In October 2026, 58% of the 1,025 offers tracked by RentJet could be bought by the seat.
- One-way. The return trip has to be booked separately.
- Speed. The median offer stayed online for 23 hours, and more than half of the offers that left the feed were gone within a day.
What did October 2026 look like?
RentJet recorded 1,025 empty leg offers on 737 routes across 90 flight dates. The most frequent routes were Paris to London (12 offers), Amsterdam to Paris (7), London to Paris (6), Cannes to Paris (5) and Paris to Nice (5). The median asking price was €8,470 for a whole aircraft and €540 per seat. These are asking prices and the counts are offers, not passengers: RentJet is a booking platform and does not know how many people actually flew.
What affects the price?
Three things matter most. The first is the aircraft: a four-seat very light jet on a short European hop costs far less than a large jet on a long-haul route. The second is the length of the route. The third is timing: offers closer to departure are usually the ones that operators most want to fill. In October 2026, per-seat offers on the five most frequent routes started between €354 and €504 for the cheapest seat, while whole-aircraft prices on London to Paris alone ranged from €5,390 to €19,030, depending on the aircraft.
How to catch an empty leg
- Keep your dates loose. An empty leg is caught, not booked for a chosen day.
- Think in regions, not airports: nearby airports often share the same demand.
- Set an alert for your route. The free Empty Legs Radar Telegram assistant sends a message when a matching flight appears.
- Check the price against history on the empty leg price history page before deciding.
- Decide quickly: current offers are listed on the hot deals page.
Common questions
Can I choose the departure time? No. The time is set by the operator, and an empty leg can be rescheduled if the aircraft’s earlier job changes.
Is it the same aircraft and crew as a normal charter? Yes. It is the same type of aircraft and the same standard of service; what differs is that the route and date are fixed by the operator.
Where do I see new flights? New offers appear on the hot deals page of RentJet.eu and in the public Telegram channel @emptylegsradar.
Data: RentJet live feed, offers first seen 1–31 October 2026.
