Empty leg or charter: which fits your trip

Which one question decides it?

Every private flight is one of two things. Either the trip bends to the aircraft, or the aircraft bends to the trip. An empty leg is the first: a jet is already going from A to B on a date the operator chose, and you take that flight as it is, for a fraction of what it would cost to charter it. A charter is the second: you name the airports and the dates, and the whole aircraft comes to you on your schedule, quoted as one total.

So the question to ask before anything else is how much your trip can bend. If the answer is a day or two either way, one direction, and any of a few airports around each end, an empty leg is worth looking for. If the answer is not at all, a charter is the right tool, and there is no penalty for asking for one straight away. This is important because the two are not rival products with a winner: they are the same aircraft, from the same FAA-certificated Part 135 operators, bought on two different sets of terms.

When does an empty leg win?

An empty leg wins whenever a jet is already doing most of your trip for its own reasons. Your dates can move: a leg is listed for the operator's day, or for a window of days, and if you can fly on any of them you have a match. You are flying one way: every empty leg is one direction, because it is a jet repositioning in one direction, and out on an empty leg and back on an airline, or back on a second empty leg if one lines up, is a common shape for a trip. Your route is one jets fly often: legs cluster between big cities and between big cities and resort towns, such as Los Angeles to Las Vegas, New York to Palm Beach or Dallas to Aspen, and the board shows what is posted on yours right now.

Two more habits widen the field significantly. You can use a nearby airport: a leg from Van Nuys is still Los Angeles, a leg from Teterboro Airport or White Plains is still New York, and a leg into an airport an hour's drive from your destination can still cost far less than a charter to the one next door. And the cabin can be whatever comes: an empty leg comes with the aircraft it comes with, so if three of you can fly happily in a light jet or a heavy jet, you have more legs to pick from than someone who needs a particular cabin. The table puts the whole decision on one page.

When does a charter win?

A charter wins whenever the trip cannot bend, or nothing is flying your way. Fixed dates come first: a board meeting, a wedding, a surgery, a game. If the day is the day, you want an aircraft on that day, not the hope that one turns up. A round trip is the second reason: empty legs are one-way by nature, so a round trip is a charter, quoted as one total for both directions on your dates, and the round trips guide covers how that is priced and when two legs can line up instead.

A group that needs a specific cabin is the third. Ten people, a lot of bags, or a flight long enough that a small cabin is a hardship all point to a particular class of aircraft, and an empty leg in exactly that class on exactly your route is rare. A route with no repositioning traffic is the fourth: some routes see a leg most days, some see one now and then, and if your city's page is quiet, a charter is how you fly it. And short notice on a quiet route is the last: tomorrow's leg from one small city to another may simply not exist, while a charter request gets you a quote for the flight you need on the day you need it, or a straight answer that it is not available. The charter cost guide shows what those quotes are built from.

How do the two compare side by side?

The lead-time row is the one people underestimate. As of September 2026 the Empty Leg Index publishes the median number of days between today and departure across the whole board, recomputed on every request, and it is short: empty legs are posted when the charter that creates them is booked, which is usually days ahead rather than months. A charter can be quoted for a date next spring; an empty leg for that date does not exist yet.

What is the middle path?

Many trips sit between the two. Your dates can move a little, you would use another airport, but you have no idea whether a jet is repositioning your way. That is what Trip Finder is for, and it runs in four steps.

1. Step 1. You give it the route, your dates, the seats and how far you would travel to a nearby airport. Asking costs nothing.
2. Step 2. It shows the legs on the board that fit the trip or come close as of the moment you search: exact matches, and legs from a nearby airport or a day or two off.
3. Step 3. You send the ones you like together, a request for each. If one works out, you get one final price for the whole aircraft, the operator named before you pay; if none does, we look at legs operators sent us that never went on the board and aircraft based near your route that are repositioning around your dates.
4. Step 4. If nothing does, we quote a charter for the same trip, so you still have a number and you only had to ask once.

What stays the same either way?

Whichever door you use, four things do not change. The operator: every flight arranged through UpLeg is flown by an operator the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has certificated under 14 CFR Part 135, and that operator is named to you before you pay. UpLeg is an air charter broker under 14 CFR Part 295, the Department of Transportation (DOT) rule for brokers: we arrange the flight and the operator flies it, and according to section 295.24 the operator's corporate name is yours before you contract. How we check operators is on its own page.

One final price: an empty leg on the board shows an estimated total and a charter starts as a request, but either way you get one final price for the whole aircraft, fees and taxes included, before you agree. One payment: you pay once, to the operator or to UpLeg, as your quote says, never both. And nothing to ask: no deposit to request, no membership, no card on file, so a quote you turn down costs you nothing. There is a third way to fly private, the jet card, which is prepaid hours at a fixed rate; UpLeg does not sell one, and the table sets all three side by side so the comparison is complete.

How do you ask for each on UpLeg?

Four doors, one sequence. Each starts with a request that costs nothing and ends with one final price you can say no to.

1. Step 1. For an empty leg that is listed: search the board by route, date, cabin or price and request the leg with your name, email and mobile number, no account needed. You get a reference straight away.
2. Step 2. For an empty leg that might post later: set a free flight alert for the route and the window of dates, and we email you when one matches.
3. Step 3. For a close match or an empty leg nobody has listed: search Trip Finder with the route, your dates and how far you would travel, and send the legs you like.
4. Step 4. For a charter: send a charter request with the airports, the dates, how many are flying and whether it is one-way or round trip, and we come back with one quoted total.

If you are still deciding, the guides on what an empty leg is, what a charter costs by the hour and how a booking works from start to finish fill in the rest. It is essential to read the cancellation policy in whichever quote you accept, because it is the operator's, it differs from one operator to the next, and it decides what comes back if the plan changes.