Repositioning flights
Empty leg flights
An aircraft flying to collect a charter, or flying home after one, with no passengers on board. Because the flight is happening anyway, operators sell it at a discount — and because it belongs to their schedule rather than yours, it comes with a real trade-off.
Your route
Find an empty leg on your route
Leave the destination blank to see everything leaving a city — most people who fly this way are chasing the aircraft rather than a particular arrival airport.
Book by phone
Ask an agent about empty legs
Empty legs are not listed or sold online. They appear and sell within hours, so an agent checks what operators have published for your route on the day.
Book by phone
Find an empty leg with a charter agent
Call and an agent will check the repositioning flights operators have published for your route and dates, confirm the price with the operator, and book it with you on the phone.
- Route
- Any route — an open destination finds the most legs
- Dates
- Flexible dates find the most legs
- Pricing
- Priced for the whole aircraft, not per seat
Agents available 24/7
Prefer not to call? Send us your trip- An agent checks live availability and prices for your dates.
- You hear the full price — taxes, supplier charges and our service fee included — before you pay.
- Nothing is charged until you agree to book.
Viajarprimero is a charter broker, not an air carrier. Every flight is operated by a licensed operator under its own air carrier certificate. Fees and charges
Why most empty-leg pages are lying to you
Most of them are permanently full, and that is the tell. A genuine empty leg exists for hours or days: it appears when an operator confirms a charter, and it disappears when somebody buys it or the originating trip moves. A page showing forty of them on a Tuesday afternoon is not showing you availability, it is showing you a list built to generate a phone call.
When you ring about one of those, it has usually just gone — and the conversation moves smoothly on to a full-price charter. We only tell you about a leg an agent has checked with the operator that day. If there is nothing on your route, that is because the market is short, and we will say so.
How to actually catch one
Flexibility is the whole game. Search with the destination blank and the date window open, and you will see several times as much as a search for one city pair on one named day. If your dates are firm, ask for a charter quote instead — it will cost more than an empty leg and it will actually depart when you need it to.
It is also worth registering the route you want. Empty legs surface with very little notice, so having your requirement on file before one appears beats refreshing a page.
Before you chase one
How empty legs really work
- Why they exist
- An aircraft has to be somewhere. After dropping passengers it either waits or flies on to its next job, and either way that repositioning flight is happening. Selling it at a discount is better for the operator than flying it empty.
- What you actually save
- Discounts are genuine and can be substantial, but they are against that specific leg on that specific day — not against a quote for the trip you wanted. Comparing an empty leg to a charter on your own dates is comparing two different products.
- What you give up
- The route, the date and the departure time are the operator's, not yours. They can move when the originating charter moves, and they can vanish entirely if that charter cancels or the operator sells the leg first.
- Who they suit
- Travellers whose plans genuinely bend around the aircraft. If you need to be somewhere on a particular day, an empty leg is not the product — a quoted charter is.
Register your route
Give us the leg and how much your dates can move. We will come back when something genuinely matches, rather than adding you to a broadcast list.
Empty legs are operated by licensed air carriers and sold subject to the originating charter. They can be withdrawn or re-timed at short notice, and we will always tell you when that has happened.
Questions
What people ask about empty legs
How much cheaper is an empty leg?
Typically a substantial fraction of a full charter on the same aircraft, but the saving is against that leg on that day, not against the trip you originally wanted. An operator repositioning an empty aircraft would rather recover part of the cost than none of it, which is where the discount comes from.
Can an empty leg be cancelled?
Yes. An empty leg exists because of an originating charter, so if that charter moves or cancels, the repositioning flight moves or disappears with it. This is the central trade-off of the product and no broker can remove it. We tell you immediately if a leg you have asked about is withdrawn.
Is the departure time fixed?
Usually not. Most legs carry a departure window rather than a slot, and the exact time is agreed with the operator once the flight is confirmed. Any listing showing a precise departure time for an unsold empty leg is showing you the start of the window.
Can I change the route or add a stop?
No. The aircraft is going where the operator needs it to go — that is what makes it cheap. If you need a different routing, you need a charter quote, which we are happy to price.
Is an empty-leg price final?
It is an estimate. Charter pricing moves with the aircraft finally assigned, the routing, crew duty limits, and the landing and handling fees at the specific airports involved. We confirm the final figure with the operator before you commit to anything.
Who actually operates the flight?
A licensed air carrier, not us. We are a travel agency: we source the aircraft and handle the booking, and the operator's own conditions of carriage govern the flight. We will tell you who the operator is and what safety audits they hold before you book.
