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.
Where do empty leg flights actually get listed?
Empty legs get listed in four places, in roughly this order of speed: the operator's internal dispatch board, a handful of broker mailing lists, the consumer aggregator apps, and finally social channels once the leg is stale. The flight you see on an app at 9 a.m. was often offered to wholesale brokers the night before and to the operator's repeat clients before that. By the time it hits XO or a public feed, two or three buyers have already passed.
That sequence matters because empty legs are a perishable inventory problem. The operator wants to recover any positioning cost; the broker wants margin; the app wants a transaction fee. Each layer adds price and delay. The closer you sit to the operator, the cheaper and earlier you see the leg — but you also have to know which operators fly the routes you want.
Which apps and aggregators are worth using?
The apps worth checking daily are XO, JetASAP, Stratos Jet Charters, and Magellan Jets' published empty leg feed. XO (which absorbed JetSmarter in 2018) runs the largest consumer-facing empty leg marketplace in the U.S., with inventory contributed by its own fleet plus third-party operators. JetASAP takes a flat-fee subscription model and shows operator-direct pricing without broker markup, which is closer to wholesale than anything else on the consumer side.
Stratos Jet Charters publishes a public empty leg list updated multiple times daily and is honest about the fact that most listings move within hours. Magellan, Jet Linx, and Sentient Jet publish member-facing empty legs that occasionally leak to non-members. Outside the U.S., PrivateFly and Victor (now part of Alpine Group) carry European repositioning inventory, particularly Nice, Geneva, and London corridors.
Skip anything that asks for your phone number before showing a single tail number, date, and price. That is a lead-gen site, not an inventory feed.
How do broker mailing lists compare to apps?
Broker mailing lists are faster and usually cheaper than apps, but only if you find a broker who actually places empty legs as part of their book. A retail charter broker who books one trip a week has nothing to send you. A wholesale-leaning broker working with 40 to 80 operators is forwarding three to ten empty leg offers a day during peak season.
Ask any broker directly: "How many empty legs did you move last month, and on what routes?" If they cannot answer in specifics, their mailing list is just a forwarded aggregator scrape. The brokers worth being on the list of will send you a leg the morning the operator releases it, often before it ever hits XO or a public feed, and they will quote with their margin disclosed.
Should you go direct to operators?
Going direct to operators is the cheapest channel if you already know which operators fly the route you want. An owner-operator running a Citation XLS out of Teterboro that repositions to West Palm three times a week will sell you the empty leg at fuel-plus-crew if you call dispatch directly. There is no app fee, no broker margin, no marketing layer.
The catch: you have to know who they are. The FAA's Part 135 operator list is public, and tools like ARGUS and Wyvern publish operator safety ratings, but neither tells you who flies which corridor on which day. The way brokers learn this is by doing it for years. The shortcut for a buyer is to ask three brokers who flies your corridor most often, then call those operators' charter desks directly for future legs.
Which routes actually produce empty legs?
The densest empty leg corridors in North America are Teterboro to Palm Beach and Opa-Locka, Van Nuys to Aspen, Bedford to Palm Beach, and the northbound returns on all of those. TEB–PBI and TEB–OPF run heavy southbound October through April and produce the reverse positioning leg almost daily. VNY–ASE peaks December through March with Sunday and Monday returns to Los Angeles. BED–PBI carries the Boston-to-Florida winter traffic.
Ski corridor returns from Aspen, Jackson Hole, Sun Valley, and Eagle every Sunday and Monday afternoon are the most predictable empty legs in the industry. Post-event slack — the days after the Super Bowl, the Monday after the Masters, the Monday after F1 Miami or Austin — produces a flood of repositioning legs out of the host city. Buyers who can fly on those specific Mondays get 60–75% off retail consistently.
Seasonally, October and November are heavy southbound to Florida as the snowbird migration starts. April and May reverse it. Summer produces Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Hamptons positioning out of TEB and MMU on Thursday and Sunday.
What are the realistic failure modes?
Empty legs cancel. The single biggest failure mode is that the inbound charter — the trip that creates the repositioning need — gets canceled or rescheduled, which kills the empty leg you booked. Aircraft swaps happen when the operator reassigns the tail to a higher-paying charter, which is contractually their right in nearly every empty leg agreement. Weather diversions on the inbound flight can move the empty leg's departure airport 200 miles, and you cannot reschedule around it.
Empty legs are also non-reroutable in practice. The departure airport, destination airport, date, and roughly the departure time are fixed by the operator. The moment you ask to shift TEB to HPN, or push the 11 a.m. departure to 3 p.m., the price stops being an empty leg price and starts being a full charter quote. Buyers who treat empty legs as flexible charter end up frustrated; buyers who treat them as a take-it-or-leave-it discount get the deal.
What is the right way to actually shop empty legs?
The buyers who consistently fly empty legs cheap do three things: they subscribe to two or three aggregator feeds and check them at 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. daily, they get on the mailing lists of two brokers who actually move repositioning inventory on their corridors, and they keep their travel dates loose by 48 hours on either end. The combination of multiple channels and date flexibility is what turns empty legs from a lottery into a repeatable discount.
One last tactical note: when a leg shows up at a price that seems too good, call immediately. The good ones are gone in under an hour during peak season. Hesitation is the most expensive thing in this market.
Frequently asked questions
Where do empty leg flights actually get listed?
Empty legs get listed in four places, in roughly this order of speed: the operator's internal dispatch board, a handful of broker mailing lists, the consumer aggregator apps, and finally social channels once the leg is stale. The flight you see on an app at 9 a.m. was often offered to wholesale brokers the night before and to the operator's repeat clients before that. By the time it hits XO or a public feed, two or three buyers have already passed.
Which apps and aggregators are worth using?
The apps worth checking daily are XO, JetASAP, Stratos Jet Charters, and Magellan Jets' published empty leg feed. XO (which absorbed JetSmarter in 2018) runs the largest consumer-facing empty leg marketplace in the U.S., with inventory contributed by its own fleet plus third-party operators. JetASAP takes a flat-fee subscription model and shows operator-direct pricing without broker markup, which is closer to wholesale than anything else on the consumer side.
How do broker mailing lists compare to apps?
Broker mailing lists are faster and usually cheaper than apps, but only if you find a broker who actually places empty legs as part of their book. A retail charter broker who books one trip a week has nothing to send you. A wholesale-leaning broker working with 40 to 80 operators is forwarding three to ten empty leg offers a day during peak season.
Should you go direct to operators?
Going direct to operators is the cheapest channel if you already know which operators fly the route you want. An owner-operator running a Citation XLS out of Teterboro that repositions to West Palm three times a week will sell you the empty leg at fuel-plus-crew if you call dispatch directly. There is no app fee, no broker margin, no marketing layer.
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PilotPrivate Editorial is the in-house editorial team that produces every article on the site under the byline “Staff.” The team consolidates working knowledge from former charter brokers, fractional program members, aircraft management operators, and aviation tax advisors. Articles cite specific regulations (FAR Part 91, Part 135, IRC §168, §1031, §274, §469) and quote real pricing without affiliate filtering. More about PilotPrivate.
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.
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.
Empty Leg Flights by Route: Most Common Repositioning Corridors
Empty legs cluster on a handful of repositioning corridors: Teterboro to Palm Beach and Opa-Locka, Van Nuys to Aspen, Bedford to Palm Beach, and Sunday-night ski returns out of ASE, EGE, and JAC. These routes generate the most inventory because operators fly them empty more often than not.