What happens when an empty leg cancels

Why do empty legs cancel?

An empty leg is the by-product of a charter someone else booked. The aircraft flies that customer from A to B and then has to go somewhere, home to base or on to the next job, and that repositioning flight is what the operator lists. So the leg lives or dies with the charter that created it. If that customer moves the trip by a day, the leg moves by a day. If they add a stop, the leg's departure airport changes. If they cancel, the aircraft never goes to B, and the leg simply disappears. The guide on what an empty leg is covers where they come from.

Two other causes have nothing to do with that customer. An aircraft can go technical: a maintenance item grounds it, and the operator either substitutes another aircraft, which may be a different cabin at a different price, or cancels. And weather can close an airport or ground a crew, in which case the operator delays or cancels for safety, exactly as it would for a full-price charter. None of this is particular to UpLeg. It is how empty legs work everywhere, and it is the reason they cost what they do.

Before confirmation versus after

The dividing line is the operator's confirmation. Until then, a listing is an intention, and the operator can change or withdraw it at any time. Your request costs nothing and commits you to nothing: no deposit, no card on file, and under the Terms a request is not a booking, so if the leg is pulled before the operator confirms, nothing is owed by anyone.

Once the operator has confirmed availability and you have agreed to the final price, the flight is a booking, and the operator's own cancellation policy applies. That policy is stated in your quote before you agree, and it is worth reading twice, because it decides how much comes back if either side cancels afterwards. It runs both ways: the operator can still cancel after confirmation if the aircraft goes technical or the weather turns, and the policy together with the Terms says what happens to your money when it does.

What UpLeg does when a leg cancels

We tell you as soon as we know. Operators withdraw legs by email, by phone or by deleting a line from their website; the board re-reads every operator every half hour, so a listing that vanishes drops off the board on the next read, and a confirmed booking the operator cancels reaches us from the operator itself, and we pass it on as soon as we hear.

Then we look for a replacement. First the board, for another leg on the same route or from a nearby airport in your window. Then the legs that never made it onto anyone's website, which is what a specialized inquiry searches. And if nothing fits and you still need to fly, we quote a charter for your dates as one total for the whole aircraft. You decide which, if any, to take; a replacement is a new quote you agree to, never an automatic substitution.

What we do not do is promise a time. Finding a replacement depends on what is repositioning on your route that week, and we would rather say so than invent a service level we cannot keep.

What is refunded?

The rules are in section 7 of the Terms of Service, and they are the same whether you booked from the board, through an inquiry or as a charter. In short:

• If the operator cancels, or the flight does not operate for any reason other than your own cancellation, nothing is owed to UpLeg. Anything you paid UpLeg is refunded in full within 7 days. Anything you paid the operator is refunded under the operator's own terms, and we help you take it up with them.
• If you cancel, the operator's cancellation policy governs what is refundable. Where you paid UpLeg, we return to you whatever the operator releases under that policy, within 7 days of receiving it, and UpLeg's own compensation is refunded only when the operator refunds the price in full.
• If UpLeg fails to give you the disclosures Part 295 requires, the operator's name among them, within a reasonable time, you may cancel your request with us at no cost.

Which of those applies turns on who cancelled and who you paid, which is why the quote states both the cancellation policy and the payee before you agree. You pay once, to the operator or to UpLeg, as your quote says, and a refund comes back along the same path: from UpLeg for what you paid UpLeg, from the operator for what you paid the operator. Read the policy before you pay, and ask about anything in it you would not want to discover afterwards; the booking guide explains what you agree to and when.

How to lower the odds

You cannot make someone else's charter hold still, but you can make a cancellation cheaper and a replacement quicker to find.

• Request as soon as you see the leg. A request costs nothing and starts the operator's confirmation, and a confirmed leg is one the operator has committed to rather than merely advertised.
• Keep your dates loose. A leg listed as a window of days, or a trip that can move a day either way, gives the operator room to keep you on board when the primary charter shifts instead of cancelling on you.
• Set a free flight alert on the route. If your leg goes, a replacement on the same route is one email away, sent the next time a matching leg posts to the board.
• Look at the city page for both ends of your trip, for example Los Angeles, so you know how much traffic the route carries and how many nearby airports a replacement could leave from.
• If the trip cannot move, book a charter. A charter is the aircraft on your dates rather than on someone else's, and the guide on empty leg or charter lays out when each fits.

Flexible departures are not cancellations

Many listings show a day and no time, or a range of days. Neither means the leg is shaky; it means the operator has not fixed the departure yet, usually because the primary charter's own timing is still open. A single day with no time shows its date alone, and the hour is settled with the operator when you request. A range of days, marked on the board as flexible with the note "time set with operator", means any day in that window works and the operator picks the departure with you. On the board a multi-day window appears under every day it covers, so the same leg can show under Thursday and again under Friday; that is one leg, not two.

A change of time inside the window, or a move to another day inside the range, is the leg working as designed, and the preferred days and hours you give on your booking page are how the operator knows what suits you. A cancellation is the operator telling you the aircraft is not going, and that is when everything above applies. If a change takes the leg outside what you agreed to, tell us, and we help you take it up with the operator along the lines above.