Empty leg flights are when an airplane is about to takeoff and open seats are available. These seats can be sold, traded and given away depending on the aircraft operator and what they want to do with them. Some will try to make more money by selling the seats…even at a discount since they may be last minute requests and authorized before takeoff. Others simple don’t want the hassle or don’t offer it in order to protect their client’s interest. Depending on the aircraft operator, empty leg flights can offer a significant savings to passengers, reduce a flight charter cost and provide a way for the general public to experience private air travel and not charter an entire aircraft. As you can imagine though, you have no say on when it leaves, where it goes, and who is in the plane with you are essentially hitchhiking…granted it’s a luxurious way to hitchhike on a plane!

First off, let’s discuss how to find empty leg flights. Empty leg flights can be found online through various sources. From brokers who specialize in this travel to fleets like NetJets who have scheduled services. Typing into search yields you plenty of results and the best thing to do is call/contact the aircraft operators who run the planes. They will be the best source to find and fit what you need.

The cost and pricing for empty leg seats are not something that is set in stone. Typically, these are seats that aircraft operators are trying to sell even up to the day of the flight. Pricing is really determined by the aircraft operator and what they feel they want to sell it for. We’ve seen prices range from several thousand dollars to $100. At Noble Air Charter, our planes can accommodate empty leg passengers, but you won’t know until the days before a chartered flight is leaving. We’ll typically charge between $600 to $1800 a seat depending on many factors. These prices are not set in stone, so the best thing to do is reach out and contact us with your flight flexibility.

You can get information on our empty leg flights right here on our website. We have jets and turbo-prop categories for the aircraft we own and operate. What you see are the dates of flights that have seats available, but we have to finalize the trip and confirm spacing. The best thing to do is call us and let us know your plans so we can see if we can fit you into an empty leg flight.

Empty leg flight seems expensive because they are not something that is needed to give away. Private charter aircraft have already been paid for, and the customers who paid for the aircraft have the right of refusing extra passengers. Adding passengers is simply a breakdown of per-seat cost vs entire chartered flight and they may seem expensive when compared to general commercial flights when compared to Delta, American Airlines, Spirit Air etc.