Fly private for up to 75% less.

An empty leg is a one-way private jet flight that an operator already has to operate, with no booked passengers on board. They happen for two reasons: a paying client booked a one-way charter (say, Austin to Aspen) and the aircraft has to return to its home base, or the aircraft has to reposition to pick up its next client on the opposite end of the route. Either way, the aircraft is going. Selling the seats — or the whole cabin — at a steep discount turns a cost into revenue.

This is not a different kind of aircraft, a different operator class, or a "budget" version of charter. It is the same Part 135 lift, with the same safety standards, at a fraction of the price.

Typical Austin empty leg pricing: a light jet to Dallas that would retail for $9,500 round trip might post as a $2,800 one-way empty leg. A midsize jet to Las Vegas at $14,000 retail can show up as a $4,200 empty leg. A heavy jet ferry from Austin to Teterboro, normally $45,000, occasionally posts in the $12,000–$18,000 range. The cabin, crew, and aircraft are identical to a full-price charter — the only difference is the operator's flexibility on the schedule.

Discounts move with supply. During peak weeks (SXSW arrivals, F1 outbound, ACL outbound) empty leg pricing tightens because the operators have plenty of paying demand in the opposite direction.

Subscribe to our empty leg alerts above. We post Austin-area empty leg flights — both ex-AUS and ex-EDC — typically two to four times per week. When you see a route you like, reply or call us within an hour or two: empty legs move fast and the discount is the reward for being first. We confirm pricing, lock the aircraft, send the digital charter agreement, and you arrive at the FBO 15 minutes before departure exactly as you would on a standard charter.

For groups with flexible dates and a known destination, we can also reverse-search: tell us "Austin to LA, anytime in the next 14 days" and we watch the market for a matching empty leg.

Empty legs are not for everyone. The schedule is fixed by the original charter — usually within a narrow departure window — and the operator can cancel or reschedule if the underlying paying flight changes. If you absolutely need to leave Austin at 8:14 a.m. on Tuesday, a standard charter is the right answer. If you can leave between, say, Monday morning and Tuesday evening, an empty leg from AUS could save you 65%.

Empty legs also rarely allow a return on the same aircraft. Most are one-way only. If you need round-trip lift on a fixed schedule, you can sometimes piece together two separate empty legs in opposite directions, but the math usually points back to a standard charter.

The most frequent Austin empty leg routes mirror the city's corporate traffic. Outbound: Austin to Dallas, Austin to Houston, Austin to Denver, Austin to Los Angeles, Austin to New York / Teterboro, Austin to Naples / Palm Beach, and Austin to Cabo / Los Cabos. Inbound (Austin as the destination on a one-way): from West Palm, Scottsdale, Aspen, Van Nuys, and Teterboro — those drop into our system during snowbird and ski season especially.

If your target route is more exotic — Austin to Sun Valley, Austin to Bahamas, Austin to Mexico City — we can keep a standing watch on the route and notify you the moment something matches.

Empty legs are the right tool when your schedule is the variable. Jet cards make sense when you want guaranteed availability on short notice and you fly 25+ hours per year — see our piece on jet cards vs charter for the math. On-demand charter is the right tool when you have a fixed date, fixed time, and specific aircraft requirements.

Most of our Austin clients use a mix: standard charter for fixed corporate trips, empty legs for spontaneous weekends, and the occasional jet card hour pool when calendar certainty matters more than price.