Ski-country empty legs run one direction: outbound from ASE, EGE, JAC, SUN, and BJC after drop-off. The reliable windows are Sunday afternoon, Monday morning, and the Friday-night return after a ski-week handoff. Expect 40-60% off comparable retail charter, with the steepest discounts on aircraft repositioning back to TEB, HPN, DAL, VNY, and HOU.
When do ski empty legs actually show up?
Ski empty legs cluster on three predictable windows: Sunday afternoon, Monday morning, and the Friday evening turn between ski-week swaps. The pattern is mechanical. An operator flies a paying client into Aspen (ASE), Eagle (EGE), Jackson Hole (JAC), Sun Valley (SUN), or Rifle (RIL) on a Friday or Saturday. The aircraft either sits on the ramp burning hangar and crew duty, or it repositions back to base — often TEB, HPN, DAL, VNY, HOU, or PBI — empty. That return is the empty leg.
Ski-week clients who book the full Saturday-to-Saturday window also generate a midweek slack period. Some operators fly the jet home Sunday and bring it back Saturday rather than park it for six days at $400-900 a night in hangar fees plus crew per diem. That doubles the empty-leg inventory on a single trip.
Which ski airports produce the most empty-leg inventory?
Aspen (ASE) and Eagle (EGE) generate the deepest empty-leg market in North America during ski season, full stop. ASE handled more than 26,000 operations in the 2023-24 season, a meaningful share of them Part 135 charter. Eagle picks up the overflow because ASE's 8,000-foot runway, 14-knot tailwind limit, and daylight-only restriction for most operators push larger aircraft — Globals, Gulfstream G650s, Falcon 7Xs — over to EGE. Jackson Hole (JAC) runs a close third, with Sun Valley (SUN) and Telluride (TEX) behind that.
Hayden (HDN) for Steamboat, Gunnison (GUC) for Crested Butte, and Bozeman (BZN) for Big Sky round out the secondary tier. BZN in particular has exploded — operations are up more than 60% since 2019 — and the empty-leg inventory has followed.
What discount should I expect on a ski empty leg?
Plan on 40-60% off comparable retail charter for a clean ski empty leg, with outliers in both directions. A Citation XLS repositioning ASE-TEB on a Sunday evening that would retail at roughly $32,000-38,000 one-way will list as an empty leg in the $14,000-20,000 range. A Challenger 350 EGE-DAL might retail at $42,000 and post empty at $18,000-24,000.
The discount widens when the operator is repositioning to a non-hub or when the date is inside 72 hours. It narrows on the Sunday after a holiday week — President's Day, MLK weekend, the week between Christmas and New Year's — when demand is dense enough that the operator can resell the leg as a one-way at near-retail. Holiday Sundays out of Aspen are the worst time to shop for a deal and the best time to sell a leg.
Where do the legs actually go?
The dominant ski empty-leg corridors are ASE-TEB, ASE-HPN, ASE-VNY, ASE-DAL, EGE-TEB, EGE-PBI, JAC-VNY, JAC-DAL, JAC-HOU, and SUN-VNY. These mirror where the inbound charter clients came from. Northeast money flies into Aspen and Jackson; Texas money fills EGE and JAC; California money dominates SUN and a chunk of JAC.
The useful corollary: if you live in a city that sends a lot of skiers to a particular mountain, you can ride the return. A New York-based skier who can flex by a day can routinely catch ASE-TEB or EGE-HPN Sunday empties. A Houston-based client has a steady Monday-morning JAC-HOU pipeline. The reverse — trying to get from TEB to ASE on an empty leg — almost never works during ski season because every inbound seat is already sold.
How do I actually find these legs?
The honest answer is you have to be on multiple lists at once. XO publishes a public empty-leg board updated continuously; Stratos Jet Charters sends a daily empty-leg email; JetASAP pulls live operator inventory; and most regional operators — Jet Linx, Solairus, NetJets (Marquis card-only), Flexjet, Vista — release legs through their own apps or brokers before they hit aggregators.
The legs that move fastest never reach a public board. They get placed by a broker who has a client roster and works the phone the moment the operator posts. If you want first look at ASE-TEB Sunday inventory, you build a relationship with two or three brokers who specialize in the ski corridor and you tell them your home airport, aircraft size, and budget before December. They call you when a leg matches.
What are the failure modes I need to plan for?
Empty legs cancel. The inbound charter — the one that created the repositioning — can cancel, push by a day, or change the drop-off airport, and your leg evaporates with it. Ski-season weather makes this worse. ASE's daylight-only rule means a 30-minute weather delay on the inbound can push the return past sunset and kill the leg entirely. EGE and JAC get socked in by snow with no notice. SUN's surrounding terrain forces diversions to TWF or BOI a few times every season.
You also accept the operator's exact departure time. If the empty leg is posted at 4:15 PM Sunday out of ASE, you are at the FBO by 3:45 PM or the aircraft leaves without you. There is no flex. Try to move the time by 90 minutes and the broker will quote you the one-way charter rate, which defeats the entire exercise.
The aircraft swap is the other one. Operators rotate tails. The Challenger 350 you booked can become a Citation Sovereign on 12 hours' notice if the original aircraft goes into unscheduled maintenance. The leg still flies; the cabin you expected does not.
When is it worth waiting versus booking retail?
Wait for empty legs when your dates are soft and your route is one of the dense ski corridors above. Book retail when you have a fixed Saturday arrival on a holiday week, when you need a specific cabin size for a group of six or more, or when you are flying into a secondary airport like TEX or HDN where empty-leg inventory is thin. The math on a family of four flying ASE-TEB on a flexible Monday morning favors patience. The math on eight people needing to be at EGE by 2 PM on Christmas Eve does not.
Frequently asked questions
When do ski empty legs actually show up?
Ski empty legs cluster on three predictable windows: Sunday afternoon, Monday morning, and the Friday evening turn between ski-week swaps. The pattern is mechanical. An operator flies a paying client into Aspen (ASE), Eagle (EGE), Jackson Hole (JAC), Sun Valley (SUN), or Rifle (RIL) on a Friday or Saturday. The aircraft either sits on the ramp burning hangar and crew duty, or it repositions back to base — often TEB, HPN, DAL, VNY, HOU, or PBI — empty. That return is the empty leg.
Which ski airports produce the most empty-leg inventory?
Aspen (ASE) and Eagle (EGE) generate the deepest empty-leg market in North America during ski season, full stop. ASE handled more than 26,000 operations in the 2023-24 season, a meaningful share of them Part 135 charter. Eagle picks up the overflow because ASE's 8,000-foot runway, 14-knot tailwind limit, and daylight-only restriction for most operators push larger aircraft — Globals, Gulfstream G650s, Falcon 7Xs — over to EGE. Jackson Hole (JAC) runs a close third, with Sun Valley (SUN) and Telluride (TEX) behind that.
What discount should I expect on a ski empty leg?
Plan on 40-60% off comparable retail charter for a clean ski empty leg, with outliers in both directions. A Citation XLS repositioning ASE-TEB on a Sunday evening that would retail at roughly $32,000-38,000 one-way will list as an empty leg in the $14,000-20,000 range. A Challenger 350 EGE-DAL might retail at $42,000 and post empty at $18,000-24,000.
Where do the legs actually go?
The dominant ski empty-leg corridors are ASE-TEB, ASE-HPN, ASE-VNY, ASE-DAL, EGE-TEB, EGE-PBI, JAC-VNY, JAC-DAL, JAC-HOU, and SUN-VNY. These mirror where the inbound charter clients came from. Northeast money flies into Aspen and Jackson; Texas money fills EGE and JAC; California money dominates SUN and a chunk of JAC.
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More from Empty Legs
What Are Empty Leg Flights and How Do They Work?
An empty leg is a repositioning flight a charter operator has to fly with no paying passengers, typically to return an aircraft to base or move it to pick up the next client. Operators discount these segments 30-75% below a comparable on-demand charter to recover variable cost. The catch: you take the route, date, and departure window the operator dictates, and the flight can cancel if the revenue charter that created it changes.
How to Find Empty Leg Deals: Apps, Brokers, and Aggregators
Empty legs surface through three channels: aggregator apps (XO, JetASAP, Stratos), broker mailing lists, and direct operator inventory. Aggregators list the most flights but mark them up; brokers see inventory hours earlier; operators quote the cleanest price if you already know who flies your corridor. Expect 30–75% off comparable retail charter, with the deepest discounts on long-tail routes and same-day notice.
Empty Leg Pricing: How Much Can You Actually Save?
Empty leg flights typically price 30-75% below comparable on-demand charter. The discount widens on long-tail routes, short-notice departures, and odd-hour times. It narrows to 20-40% on dense corridors like TEB-PBI or VNY-ASE where operators have confirmed return clients lined up.
The Trade-Offs of Empty Legs: Flexibility vs Discount
Empty legs discount 30-75% off comparable retail charter, but you buy the operator's exact route, exact date, and exact departure window. The math works when your calendar already matches the repositioning flight. Shift the city pair by 50 miles or the departure by four hours and the discount disappears — or the trip does.