An empty leg is not a discount. It is someone else’s schedule that happens to overlap with yours.

When an aircraft finishes a charter away from its next pickup, it has to reposition. Selling that repositioning leg is better than flying it empty, which is why the price is low. Everything difficult about empty legs follows from the fact that the flight was going to happen anyway.

What you give up

• The date. It is fixed by the paying charter either side of it.
• The route. Origin and destination are set. A 40-mile change can end the deal.
• The certainty. If the originating charter moves or cancels, the empty leg moves or cancels with it.

When it is the right call

When the trip is genuinely optional in timing — a weekend, a golf trip, a second home — and you would otherwise fly commercially. When the trip is not optional, the honest advice is to book the flight you need and treat empty legs as a bonus you occasionally catch.

Current availability moves constantly; the Charter page is the place to ask rather than a list that is stale by the time it is published.