An “empty leg” is a repositioning flight — an aircraft flying without passengers to reach its next scheduled charter or return to its home base. Because the operator is flying the leg regardless, empty-leg pricing can run 25-50% below a standard charter quote for the same route. It’s real savings, but it comes with a real constraint worth being direct about: you’re booking around another client’s schedule, not the reverse.
That means empty legs work best for flexible travel — a ski weekend where Friday or Saturday departure both work, not a board meeting with a fixed 9am start. Routes and dates are only confirmed once the primary charter is locked, sometimes with as little as 24-48 hours notice, and a route can disappear from availability if the primary trip’s schedule shifts.
Our Meridian 50 and Summit 100 members receive empty-leg credits specifically because their broader travel patterns tend to have more flexibility to absorb that uncertainty — a family with a standing second-home route, for instance, can often slot into a matching empty leg without disrupting real plans. We list live empty-leg availability to members directly rather than publishing a public inventory, since routes change hourly.