UpLeg finds empty-leg private jet flights across dozens of operators and puts them in one place, at a fraction of retail charter cost. Free to browse and request. Every price is an estimated total.
Updated
What's an empty leg?
When a charter operator flies a jet from A to B for a paying customer, the aircraft usually has to fly back empty, or position somewhere new for its next job. Those empty flights cost the operator real money: fuel, crew, landing fees, all the same.
So operators sell them, typically up to 75% off retail charter pricing. The problem is, empty legs are scattered across operator websites, scheduling tools, and back-channel emails, and they expire fast.
UpLeg pulls them into one place. You request one, we confirm availability and one exact total with the operator, you say yes, and we introduce you to book. Every price on the board is an estimate of that total. That's the whole pitch.
How an empty leg happens.
A worked example, with typical numbers. Not a real booking.
- 01
A customer charters NYC → Miami
An operator quotes $32,800 for a Challenger 350. Standard retail charter, priced from scratch.
- 02
The jet flies the trip
Friday, 9:00 a.m. Wheels up. The customer gets where they were going.
- 03
The plane has to come back
Sunday's next job is in Teterboro. Without a passenger, the return is pure cost: fuel, crew, landing fees. A $25,000 reposition with nobody on board.
- 04
The operator lists it. UpLeg finds it.
OPF → TEB, Sunday 11:00, priced to recover fuel and crew time rather than fly empty. You request it on UpLeg, we confirm one final total with the operator, and you pay once, to whoever your quote names.
OPFTEBSun 11:00You pay for the flight$8,345
That return flight is going anyway. Someone may as well be on it.
Three rules we don't break.
The same three things hold on every booking, whatever the aircraft or the price.
One total, confirmed before you sign.
Every price on the board is an estimate. The operator confirms, we send you the final number, you say yes, and you pay once, to the operator or to UpLeg as your quote says. No membership, no deposit to ask, no card kept on file.
No payment until confirmed.
You request first. The operator confirms availability and the total. Then you pay. Nobody takes a card on file just in case. Empty legs move fast and sometimes get pulled, so your wallet stays out of it until there is a confirmed flight to pay for.
Humans on both sides.
A person reads your request and takes it to a person at the operator. No auto-confirm. No "your booking is being processed by our algorithm." When something needs a phone call, we make it.
Ali Merchant, founder.
- Private pilot
- Business administration student
- Corporate aviation advisor
UpLeg is run by its founder. Every request is read by a person, and when something needs a phone call to an operator, that call gets made. There is no sales team and no script: the person who reads your request is the person who calls the operator and the person who sends you the price.
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How UpLeg works, in detail
What is UpLeg?
UpLeg is an air charter broker that finds empty leg private jet flights and quotes private charters, flown by FAA-certified Part 135 operators.
UpLeg LLC is a California limited liability company formed in 2026. It represents the flyer, not the operator: it gathers the empty legs operators publish into one board, takes your request to the operator by phone and email, confirms one exact total, and introduces you to book. It does not operate aircraft, and it is not a membership.
There are three doors. The board, for an empty leg an operator has already published. Trip Finder, which matches your trip against every leg on the board, close matches and jets on the way included, and sends the ones you pick to us together, a request for each; if none fits, a person goes and looks for a leg nobody published. The charter request, for a trip on your own dates, one-way or round trip, quoted as one total for the whole aircraft. All three end the same way: one final price, the operator named, one payment.
UpLeg began as Empty Flights, and emptyflights.org still lands here. The site lives at flyupleg.com; the brand is UpLeg, and the mail stays on upleg.org, which is why the contact address is [email protected]. It is small on purpose: one founder and no call centre, so every request is read by someone who can pick up the phone to an operator's desk.
| Legal entity | UpLeg LLC, a California limited liability company formed in 2026 |
|---|---|
| What it is | An air charter broker under 14 CFR Part 295, the Department of Transportation (DOT) rules for brokers |
| Who flies you | FAA-certificated Part 135 operators, named before you pay |
| What the board lists | Empty legs on flights that touch the United States, updated every 30 minutes |
| What is quoted by hand | Empty legs that were never published, and full charters, one-way or round trip |
| What it does not sell | Memberships, jet cards, seats on a shared flight |
| Founder | Ali Merchant |
| Contact | [email protected] |
Two things are essential to check before you agree to any private flight, whoever arranges it: the name of the operator and its cancellation policy. UpLeg puts both in every quote.
As of
How does a booking work?
Six steps, one signature, one payment. Nothing is owed until the operator has confirmed and you have agreed to the total.
You will be asked for your name, a US mobile number and the number of seats, because that is what an operator's desk asks for before it will hold a leg. You will not be asked for a deposit, a card number, a membership or a minimum spend.
- Step 1. Pick a leg. Open a flight on the board. The listing shows the route, the date or the departure window, the aircraft, the seats and the estimated total.
- Step 2. Request it. Add your name, email and mobile number and click Request. No account is needed, there is no deposit and no card on file, and you get a booking reference straight away.
- Step 3. We confirm with the operator. A person takes your request to the FAA-certificated Part 135 operator by phone or email, and confirms that the leg is still available and the exact total for the whole aircraft.
- Step 4. You get one final price. The total, the operator’s name and its cancellation policy come to you before you agree to anything.
- Step 5. Say yes. You agree to a short set of terms on your booking page. That click is the only signature the site asks for, and it freezes the amounts.
- Step 6. Book and fly. We introduce you to the operator. You pay once, to the operator or to UpLeg as your quote says, and the operator flies you. If the operator withdraws the leg before departure, we tell you as soon as we know and help you look for an alternative.
How does UpLeg make money?
UpLeg is paid a fee per booking, set for each trip. Your quote says who pays it: the operator out of its price, you to UpLeg, or both, and the total you agree to is the whole number either way. The fee never moves a leg up or down the board: ranking scores the route, the timing and the size of the discount, nothing else. The Terms say the same in legal language, and the amount on any booking is confirmed on request.
Who flies the aircraft?
An FAA-certificated Part 135 operator, never UpLeg. Part 135 is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rule for on-demand charter, published in full on eCFR: the certificate holder employs the pilots, maintains the aircraft and has operational control of every flight. UpLeg builds its operator list from the FAA's own register of Part 135 certificate holders, checks the tail number of the aircraft that confirms your flight in the FAA registry, and names the operator to you before you pay. A certificate is the legal floor, not a safety rating; the full check is at how we vet operators.
How is the board built?
Operators publish their empty legs on their own websites and in their scheduling tools. UpLeg reads those published pages every 30 minutes, drops any flight that does not touch the United States, and lists the rest with the route, the date or the departure window, the aircraft, the seats and a price. Where the operator published a price it is shown as listed; where it did not, UpLeg computes an estimated total and marks it as an estimate. This is important because a listing can vanish as fast as it appeared: a request is not a booking until the operator has confirmed. Each listing carries the departure as the operator stated it: an exact time when one was printed, otherwise the day or the range of days, never a clock the operator did not give, and a leg is marked flexible only when the operator gave a range of days or a window of times. Legs that were never published are found by hand: send your trip from Trip Finder and we ask the operators around both ends of your route.
Where does UpLeg operate?
Every flight on the board departs from or arrives in the United States, and a flight between two foreign airports is never listed. When the city pages were chosen in September 2026, the metros with the most live legs were New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami and Houston, and the busiest fields on the board were Harry Reid International (LAS), Teterboro (TEB), Van Nuys (VNY), Miami-Opa Locka Executive (OPF) and William P. Hobby (HOU). Westchester County (HPN), Fort Lauderdale Executive (FXE), Palm Beach International (PBI) and the resort fields at Aspen (ASE), Jackson Hole (JAC), Sun Valley (SUN), Nantucket (ACK) and East Hampton (HTO) each have a page of their own, as do San Francisco, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, Salt Lake City, Scottsdale and Lake Tahoe. Legs with one foreign end list as well: Toronto, Montreal, Mexico, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands have all appeared with a US city at the other end. Every metro has a page under empty legs by city, every route between two of them has one in each direction, twelve states have one, and so do four time windows: today, this weekend, this week and last minute.
What UpLeg does not do, and the key terms
What does UpLeg not do?
UpLeg does not operate aircraft, does not sell memberships, jet cards or seats on a shared flight, and does not list flights between two foreign airports. It takes no deposit to ask, keeps no card on file, and takes no payment before the operator has confirmed and you have agreed to the total. The first table below sets an empty leg beside the two things it is most often mistaken for, a private jet charter and a jet card; the second is the six cabin classes on the board's cabin filter.
| Aspect | Empty leg | Private jet charter | Jet card |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you buy | The whole aircraft on a flight it was making anyway | The whole aircraft for a trip built around you | Prepaid hours or dollars, drawn down per flight |
| Price | Up to 75% under retail charter; one final price before you book | Retail, quoted per trip; one final price before you book | Fixed hourly rates, paid in advance |
| Route and dates | Set by the aircraft's schedule | Yours | Yours, with the program's notice period |
| Commitment to ask | None: no deposit, no card on file | None: a quote is free | A prepaid balance, often on a term |
| Who flies you | An FAA-certificated Part 135 operator, named before you pay | An FAA-certificated Part 135 operator, named before you pay | The program's own or partner operators |
| Can it change | Yes: the operator can withdraw the leg if its schedule changes | Rarely: the trip is yours once confirmed | Rarely |
| Best for | Flexible dates on a common route, one direction | Fixed dates, round trips, groups, unusual routes | Frequent flyers who want a fixed rate |
| On UpLeg | The live board at flyupleg.com/flights | A free quote at flyupleg.com/charter | Not offered |
| Cabin class | Typical trip | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Turboprop | Up to about 2 hours | A few people on a short hop, small airports |
| Light jet | 2 to 3 hours | A small group inside a region |
| Midsize | 3 to 4 hours | A group that wants room to work or eat |
| Super midsize | 4 to 5 hours, coast to coast | A full team, a stand-up cabin |
| Heavy | 5 to 7 hours | A larger group, overnight flights |
| Ultra long range | 8 hours and more | Intercontinental trips without a stop |
Two more lines. UpLeg does not print the operator's name on a public listing, because a listing is shared inventory the operator can also sell elsewhere; the name reaches you by email once the operator has confirmed, before you pay. And it does not send email you did not ask for: the only messages are the ones a request, a booking or an alert you set produces.
Key terms
These terms mean the same thing on every UpLeg page and in every quote. On the board, listed means that the operator published the price itself, and estimated means that UpLeg computed the range and marked it as an estimate. Part 135 refers to the FAA rules an operator flies under, and Part 295 refers to the Department of Transportation rules UpLeg works under as an air charter broker. This is important because the operator, not UpLeg, flies the aircraft and holds operational control of every flight.
- Air charter broker
- An air charter broker is a company that arranges flights on aircraft it does not operate, under 14 CFR Part 295. UpLeg is an air charter broker: every flight it arranges is flown by a Part 135 operator that is named before you pay and that holds operational control of the flight. More on air charter brokers
- Part 135 operator
- A Part 135 operator is an air carrier the FAA has certificated under 14 CFR Part 135 to fly on-demand charter with its own aircraft, pilots and maintenance program. Every empty leg and charter on UpLeg is flown by one. More on Part 135 operators
- Empty leg
- An empty leg is a private jet flight that has to happen anyway, with nobody on board, because the aircraft is repositioning after one charter or before the next. Operators sell that flight for the whole aircraft at a fraction of the charter price, on the aircraft's own route and dates. More on empty legs
- Estimated total
- An estimated total is UpLeg's estimate, shown as a range and marked as an estimate, for an empty leg the operator posted without a price. Every booking gets one final price for the whole aircraft before you agree to anything. More on estimated totals
Terms as of