How to Book an Empty Leg Flight

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By Pat Sinnott, Founder of Peak Aviation Solutions, also on LinkedIn. Commercial multi-engine rated pilot, 21 years in private aviation, helped grow Summit Aviation’s flight department from one airplane to 21 before starting Peak in Bozeman, Montana.

Last updated: July 7, 2026

Finding the deal is the fun part. An alert lands, the price looks like a typo in your favor, and you’re already mentally packing. Then comes the part nobody writes about: how to book an empty leg flight in a way that doesn’t leave you holding the risk.

I’ve signed, papered, and flight-followed these trips for years, and the difference between a great empty leg experience and a story people tell angrily at dinner parties is almost never the airplane. It’s the booking process. So here is the whole thing, start to wheels up, including the two contract answers that matter more than the price and the document cross-check that happens between your signature and your flight.

Booking an empty leg flight works like this: you inquire, the broker confirms the leg with the operator, you get a full proposal with all-in pricing, you sign electronically and pay (wire or card; card typically adds about a 4 percent administrative fee), and the broker cross-checks every detail before you drive to the airport. Total time can be under two hours.

How to book an empty leg flight, start to wheels up

Here’s exactly what happens at Peak when you spot a leg you want, whether it came from our empty legs page or an email alert.

1. You inquire. One click on the inquire button in the alert or on the website. That pings us immediately.
2. We talk, briefly. Departure timing, passenger count, pets, luggage, any special requests, and whether you want catering or ground transportation arranged. Five minutes, usually by phone or text.
3. We confirm the leg with the operator. Is it still available, what’s the real departure window, and what’s the status of the trip that created it? A listing is a rumor until this call happens.
4. You get a full proposal. Aircraft make and model, operator, all-in price including the 7.5 percent federal excise tax and segment fees, and the terms. For our alert subscribers, this typically lands within the hour.
5. You sign and pay. DocuSign on the charter agreement, then payment by wire or card. More on that choice below.
6. We paper the trip. We cross-check the operator’s agreement line by line against what you were promised: aircraft, tail number, times, passenger count. Mismatches get fixed before they become airport surprises.
7. You get the itinerary. FBO name and address, tail number, crew details, and exact timing. You drive up next to the airplane, and you’re wheels up minutes after boarding.

That’s the machine. Now the parts where people get burned.

What to have ready when you inquire

Five details cover nearly everything we need to move fast:

• Origin and destination (a city is fine; we’ll find the right airport)
• Your date and your honest departure-time window
• Passenger count, including kids and pets
• Luggage beyond the ordinary: skis, golf clubs, anything heavy
• Whether you want catering or a car waiting on arrival

Have those ready and the conversation takes five minutes instead of a phone-tag afternoon. And don’t underestimate the luggage line: a group once arrived with 250 pounds of undisclosed fish, and the crew had to sit burning off fuel before they could safely take off. Tell us early.

What you’ll sign and how you’ll pay

All-in pricing means the number on the proposal already contains the aircraft, the crew, the 7.5 percent federal excise tax, the per-passenger segment fees and the broker’s margin, with nothing added afterward.

The charter agreement for an empty leg flight looks like a standard charter contract, because legally it is one. You’re chartering the aircraft; the discount doesn’t change the paperwork.

Two payment facts worth knowing before the moment arrives. First, roughly 95 percent of our clients pay by wire, because credit cards add about a 4 percent administrative fee, and 4 percent of even a discounted charter is real money. Second, payment is contractually due at signing, and on a short-notice empty leg flight there’s no float time: the operator won’t hold a discounted leg for a maybe.

One plumbing detail that trips people up: bank wire cut-off times. On a same-day booking, an afternoon wire may not land until the next morning, so we time the paperwork around your bank, not the other way around. On our side, Peak pays the operator the day before or the day of the trip, so the plumbing is already planned when you sign.

One thing you should demand from whoever you book with: all-in pricing on the proposal. The number you sign should already include taxes, segment fees, and the broker’s margin. If a quote arrives as a teaser price with “plus taxes and fees” trailing behind it, you’re not comparing real numbers. We quote all-in on every trip, empty leg or not, because surprise line items are how this industry loses people.

Cancellation terms: read them before you pay

This is the paragraph to slow down on, because an empty leg flight carries one risk a regular charter doesn’t: it exists because of someone else’s trip. If that primary trip cancels or moves, your leg can evaporate through no fault of yours.

So before you sign, get two answers in writing. What happens if you cancel? Standard practice is that the client owes some or all of the price once the agreement is signed, and terms vary by operator.

And what happens if the operator cancels because the primary trip changed? That answer separates providers. When it happened to one of our clients, we sourced a replacement aircraft the same day, held his price, and absorbed the difference ourselves.

Weather and aircraft availability round out the risk picture. Here’s the honest map of every scenario on an empty leg flight:

Scenario	What the contract usually says
You cancel after signing	Penalties per the operator’s terms, often up to the full price on short notice
Operator cancels the leg (primary trip changed)	Terms vary by operator; get the answer in writing before you pay
Weather	Outright cancellation is rare; timing shifts instead
The assigned aircraft can’t fly	Recovery on a replacement aircraft, on terms the agreement spells out

Two of those rows have a Peak-specific answer worth knowing. Weather at origin, destination and enroute is part of the Total Flight Review we run within 24 hours of every flight; departure times shift from that review rather than from a phone call at the FBO. And if we recover you onto a replacement aircraft that costs less than you paid, the difference comes back to you.

I wrote more about why legs vanish, and the honest economics behind it, in how empty leg flights work. The short version for booking purposes: the cancellation clause is not boilerplate on these trips. It’s the whole ballgame.

How fast can booking actually go?

Faster than most people believe, and sometimes it has to.

A Bozeman client once called in the middle of a family medical emergency: a loved one was being rushed to a Seattle hospital, and he needed to be there that day. An aircraft that had just landed in Bozeman needed to get back to its home base near Seattle, and we had him wheels up within three hours of his first call. The only thing that slowed it down was the client tying up work obligations before he could leave.

That’s the pace this market runs at when the pieces are in place. Same-day empty leg flight bookings are entirely normal: inquire in the morning, signed and paid by lunch, airborne that afternoon. We love that stuff, and we’re built for it, with calls and texts coming straight to my phone.

The only genuine speed bump is late-night requests, since operators are people and most of their schedulers sleep. Inquire at 11 pm and the confirmation usually comes early the next morning. Weekend bookings have their own quirk: banks are closed, so a Saturday signature sometimes means Monday’s wire, and we structure the agreement around that rather than letting it stall the trip.

Pairing an empty leg flight with your return

An empty leg flight is one-way by nature, and that stops some people at the booking stage. It shouldn’t.

The smartest pattern we see: take the discounted leg in whichever direction matches your plans, then book a standard one-way charter for the other direction. We price both pieces together in the same proposal, so you see the true round-trip cost before committing to either half.

Run the math on a corridor like LA to Las Vegas, where empty legs show up between $5,000 and $7,000 against roughly $18,000-plus retail each way. Pairing a discounted leg with a standard return still lands far below round-trip retail. Sometimes the numbers favor two standard legs instead, especially when your return falls in the one-way sweet spot a few weeks out. That’s a sourcing question, not a guessing game: ask for both numbers side by side and decide with the whole picture.

Red flags before you book an empty leg flight

Most of what goes wrong in this market is avoidable at booking time. Watch for these.

• A vague departure window. Every legitimate empty leg has a specific window dictated by the operator’s schedule, usually one to three hours. If whoever’s selling can’t state it precisely, they haven’t verified the leg. Walk.
• Operator-level safety claims. “ARGUS rated operator” sounds reassuring, but ratings exist at two levels, and here’s the detail most people miss: an operator can be fully approved while a specific crew pairing fails the crew-level check. We pull the ARGUS or Wyvern report on the actual crew flying your leg, and we’ve canceled flights when crews didn’t pass. Ask for the crew-level report. Anyone unwilling to show it is telling you something.
• Seat-by-seat sales. If an “empty leg” is being sold per seat, rideshare style, be careful: those programs need DOT authority most sellers don’t hold. Charter the airplane, not a seat on it.
• Pressure without paper. Real urgency exists in this market, since good legs disappear inside 72 hours. But legitimate urgency comes with a written proposal you can read before paying. Someone rushing you past the documents is using the clock against you.
• No mention of the primary trip. If your seller can’t tell you anything about the trip that created the leg, they can’t tell you how likely it is to actually fly. That status check is the single best predictor of whether your plans survive.
• A seller who never asks about you. If nobody asks your passenger count, luggage, or whether the dog is coming before sending a quote, you’re looking at a template, not a proposal. Those details drive weight, balance, and legality on smaller aircraft. Remember the 250 pounds of fish; the crew certainly does.

The document cross-check between your signature and your flight

Between your signature and your flight, somebody should be comparing documents. The operator’s agreement, your charter agreement, the quoted aircraft, the tail number, the passenger manifest, the times: all of it has to match, and on short-notice bookings it’s exactly where errors creep in.

We treat that cross-check as non-negotiable. It is also the advantage of one point of contact: here it is one call between the two people who actually hold the documents.

The cross-check is also where being a pilot changes the job. The day before you fly, I’m looking at weather, NOTAMs, and temporary flight restrictions on your route, not because the operator won’t, but because their crew often reads the trip sheet the morning of. Booking an empty leg flight through someone who works this way means problems get solved before you ever hear about them.

One more thing on that. The very last check happens after you book, once the operator assigns your crew, and it belongs to the Total Flight Review, our own per-trip check run within 24 hours of every flight: we plug the pilot in command, the second in command, and the tail number into the third-party audit systems, and the trip doesn’t fly unless it comes back green. It sits on top of the Operator Vetting File we build once per operator, with the safety rating, insurance certificate, W-9, and the D085, the FAA operations specification listing the aircraft authorized under that operator’s Part 135 certificate. The full checklists live on our safety page. You’ll never see either step happen. It’s the quiet reason these trips hold together.

And to be clear for readers outside Montana: all of this, the alerts, the verification, the within-the-hour proposals, runs nationwide. About 80 percent of our flying happens outside our home state, so a booking from Charleston or Burbank works exactly like one from Bozeman.

Frequently asked questions about how to book an empty leg flight

What does an empty leg private jet cost?

It depends on the corridor and how close to departure you are, but the shape is consistent: on a route like LA to Las Vegas, empty legs show up between $5,000 and $7,000 against roughly $18,000-plus retail each way. Whatever the number, insist on all-in pricing that already contains the 7.5 percent federal excise tax, segment fees, and the broker’s margin. Paying by card typically adds about a 4 percent administrative fee on top.

Can I book an empty leg private jet the same day?

Yes, and it’s routine. Inquire in the morning, signed and paid by lunch, airborne that afternoon. The limits are practical rather than procedural: schedulers sleep, so late-night inquiries usually confirm the next morning, and banks close, so a weekend signature sometimes means a Monday wire.

Can I pay for an empty leg flight with a credit card?

Yes, though card payments typically add around a 4 percent administrative fee, which is why roughly 95 percent of our clients wire funds instead. Payment is due at signing on short-notice legs; operators won’t hold a discounted aircraft while a payment floats.

What happens after I sign the charter agreement?

The broker pays the operator, cross-checks the operator’s contract against your proposal (aircraft, tail number, times, passengers), and sends your itinerary with the FBO address and crew details. Your job is done at signing; everything after that is verification and logistics. Check your agreement for how much grace it allows on arrival time; terms differ by operator.

Can I cancel an empty leg flight after booking?

Terms vary by operator, and cancellation penalties are standard once you’ve signed, often up to the full price on short-notice legs. Get the cancellation clause in writing before you pay, and ask separately what happens if the operator cancels because the primary trip changed.

How to book an empty leg flight safely with an unfamiliar broker?

The airplane is as safe as its operator and crew; the booking is as safe as the verification behind it. Ask any broker for the crew-level third-party safety report, the exact departure window, and the status of the primary trip. Solid answers to those three mean you’re in good hands, whoever’s desk it is.

The bottom line

Booking an empty leg flight is a two-hour process wearing the costume of a complicated one. Inquire, verify, sign, pay, cross-check, fly. Most of what’s written about how to book an empty leg flight makes it sound harder than that, and the savings are real, and so is the speed.

The protection isn’t in the price. It’s in what you ask before paying and who does the verifying after you sign. Get those two things right and the discounted seat feels exactly like the full-price one, all the way down the runway. That is the whole difference between reading about empty leg flight deals and flying on one.

Ready when the right leg shows up

The booking machine only matters once a leg matches your plans, and that part runs on autopilot: free alerts, any US city pair (with international opportunities in the mix too), sent when legs actually post rather than on a set schedule, covering everything within 250 nautical miles of both ends of your corridor. Set it once on our empty legs page and you’re in position. The next good leg on your corridor won’t care whether you were ready, so be ready.

Picture it: the alert hits at 9 am, you reply at 9:05, the proposal’s in your inbox before your second coffee, and you sign from your phone. That’s the whole distance between reading about how to book an empty leg flight and sitting on one.

Already have a leg in mind from how to find empty leg flights, or a trip that needs a standard quote? Call or text (406) 296-3256, or request a quote. Everything about empty leg flights lives in one place, with one person answering for all of it.

Subscribe to empty leg alerts, free

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Related guides

• Empty Leg Flights: How They Work and How to Actually Book One
• How to Find Empty Leg Flights (Where Brokers Actually Look)
• How Do Empty Leg Flights Work? A Broker Explains the Economics

Related services

• Empty leg alerts and live inventory, free subscription, pay only when you fly
• Request a charter quote, all-in pricing on any trip
• Meet Pat Sinnott, the pilot who verifies every leg

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Peak Aviation Solutions, Private Jet Charter Broker

Peak Aviation Solutions is a pilot-founded private jet charter broker headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, arranging charter flights across the US and Canada. We arrange — you fly.

Founder: Pat Sinnott, commercial multi-engine rated pilot with 21 years in private aviation. Helped grow Summit Aviation’s flight department from one airplane to 21 before founding Peak. NBAA member.

Services: private jet charter brokerage, empty leg flights and free empty leg alerts, business travel, personal travel, group travel, and event charter. No membership fees; clients pay per trip. Third-party safety vetting on every flight.

Coverage: roughly 5,000 public-use airports across the United States, only about 500 of which have commercial airline service (FAA), plus Canada. About 80 percent of Peak’s flying happens outside Montana.

Contact: charter@flypeak.com · (406) 296-3256 · flypeak.com · Instagram @peakaviationsolutions