Empty Leg Flights Rarely Repeat a Route, So Search by City

If you wait for empty leg flights on one exact route, you may wait a long time. In the listings we read in October 2026, we counted 1,951 flights. They cover 1,442 different routes. And 1,166 of those routes, or 81 percent, appear only once. But the cities repeat. Just eight places touch 46 percent of all the flights. The route that repeats most is Houston to Dallas, with 28 flights across both directions.

An empty leg is a private flight that would fly empty anyway. Often the aircraft is going home, or going to pick up its next client. Operators often sell these seats for less than a normal charter. The catch is that you have to fit their plan. So where do private jet empty legs actually go? We looked at every flight on our empty legs board to find out.

Most routes show up once

We grouped the flights by route. A route here means a departure city and an arrival city, in one direction. Here is how often each route appears.

• 1,166 routes appear once.
• 276 routes appear two times or more.
• 23 routes appear five times or more. Together they carry 164 flights.

So a single route rarely comes back. If you only search for "New York to Palm Beach on Friday," you will miss most of what is out there.

The routes that repeat most

A few routes do come back again and again. Here are the ten that repeat most, counted one direction at a time.

From	To	Flights listed
Houston	Dallas	15
Dallas	Houston	13
Teterboro	Toronto	11
Houston	Austin	9
Van Nuys	Las Vegas	8
Boise	Bermuda Dunes	8
London	Paris	8
Salem	Boise	8
Houston	Fort Worth	7
Toronto	Teterboro	7

Texas stands out. Houston and Dallas appear in four of the top ten routes. London to Paris is the only route outside North America in the top ten.

Houston and Dallas up close

We looked at all 28 flights between Houston and Dallas, in both directions.

• 16 of the 28 are on a Pilatus PC-12, a single engine turboprop.
• Listed prices run from USD 2,400 to USD 7,900 for the whole aircraft.

The flights use several airports on each side. In Houston they include Hobby (HOU) and West Houston (IWS). In Dallas they include Love Field (DAL) and Addison (ADS).

The places that appear most

Routes rarely repeat, but places do. We counted how many flights leave from or land at each place.

Place	Departures	Arrivals	Flights touching it	Share of flights
Miami	115	117	231	11.8%
Teterboro	76	72	148	7.6%
Las Vegas	72	75	147	7.5%
Houston	63	62	125	6.4%
Toronto	38	56	94	4.8%
Dallas	40	45	85	4.4%
Van Nuys	36	38	74	3.8%

Naples needs a note. The feed lists 100 flights for "Naples." But 90 of them use Naples, Florida (APF). The other 10 use Naples, Italy (NAP). That makes Naples, Florida one of the busiest places on the board.

The seven places in the table plus Naples, Florida appear in 894 of the 1,951 flights. That is 46 percent.

Miami means Opa-locka

Miami is the busiest place on the board. But most of these flights do not use Miami International. Of the 231 Miami flights, 171 list Miami-Opa Locka Executive (OPF). Only 19 list Miami International (MIA).

So if you live in South Florida, check the private terminals at Opa-locka. Our FBO directory lists private terminals by airport.

North America has most of the flights

North America has 1,624 of the 1,951 flights. That is 83 percent. Europe has 273. Africa has 21, Oceania 8, South America 3, the Middle East 2 and Asia 1.

In Europe, the most listed places are London (53 flights), London Luton (40), Wevelgem in Belgium (34) and Paris (28).

How far ahead flights are listed

Empty legs are a short notice product. On the day we counted:

• 118 flights departed that same day.
• 511 departed within 7 days.
• 1,147 departed within 30 days. That is 59 percent.

What this tells a traveller

• Search by city, not by route. Your exact route will probably not come back. Flights from your city often will.
• Check all nearby airports. In Miami, that means Opa-locka. In Dallas, that means Love Field and Addison as well as DFW.
• Look one to four weeks ahead. Most flights on the board leave within 30 days.
• Be ready for a smaller aircraft on short routes. On Houston to Dallas, more than half the flights are a PC-12.

Want to compare an empty leg price with a full charter? Our private jet cost calculator shows hourly costs by aircraft size. You can also find companies that sell empty legs in our directory.

Source: empty leg listings on The Flying Engineer empty legs board, read in October 2026. The board changes through the day.

Photo: Tripsev777, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons