Empty legs are structurally the most attractive charter opportunity in most Part 135 operations — and the most commonly under-marketed one.
The economics are simple. When an aircraft deadheads to reposition for a booked trip, or returns to base after a one-way booking, the marginal operating cost of carrying a paying passenger is close to zero. Fuel is already committed. Crew hours are already committed. The fixed costs of the trip are already absorbed. Any revenue from an empty leg is essentially pure margin — which means even a deeply discounted rate can produce a better financial outcome than flying empty.
The problem is that most operators market these opportunities poorly, or not at all, and the ones that do market them hand the transaction to aggregators who take a cut, collect the customer relationship, and offer nothing in return except one-time fill.
There is a better approach.
Why Aggregators Underserve Operators on Empty Legs
Charter aggregator platforms — Victor, PrivateFly, and the many regional equivalents — provide distribution for empty legs. They have audiences. Buyers visit these platforms specifically looking for discounted last-minute opportunities. For an operator with no owned marketing infrastructure, listing on an aggregator can fill a sector that would otherwise fly empty.
But the economics deteriorate quickly at scale:
Margin erosion. Most aggregator platforms take 10 to 25 percent of the booking value on empty leg transactions. On a sector where the margin is already thin by comparison to a full-rate booking, this commission significantly reduces the net benefit.
No customer relationship. The buyer who books your empty leg through an aggregator becomes the aggregator's customer, not yours. Their email address, their preference data, their flight history — all of it belongs to the platform. The next time they search for an empty leg, they return to the platform, not to you.
No brand building. Aggregator platforms present all operators in a uniform format. The buyer sees price, route, and aircraft — nothing about your safety ratings, your crew standards, or what makes booking directly with your operation better than the next listing on the page.
No repeat booking path. Empty leg passengers who convert to repeat full-rate charter clients are the highest-lifetime-value segment in the business. Aggregators have no incentive to facilitate that conversion and no mechanism that benefits you if it happens.
How to Build an Owned Empty Leg Audience
The goal of an owned empty leg strategy is to build a direct audience of buyers who monitor your availability, receive your alerts, and book through you — without an intermediary taking a cut of each transaction.
The three components of this are email, a dedicated empty leg page, and retargeting.
Email List: The Highest-Leverage Channel
An email list of past charter clients and empty leg opt-ins is the foundation of owned empty leg marketing. When an empty leg becomes available, a single email to a list of 500 relevant subscribers can fill a sector in hours. The cost per notification is effectively zero. The conversion rate from an owned list significantly exceeds that from aggregator platform browsers, because the audience already has a relationship with your operation.
Building the list requires capturing email addresses at every relevant touchpoint:
- Every charter quote request (regardless of whether it converts to a booking)
- Every booking — ask at or after completion if they want empty leg alerts
- Your website — a dedicated sign-up form on the empty leg page offering to notify subscribers when availability matches their routes
- Social media — periodic empty leg announcements with a link to the email list
The list takes time to build. It is worth starting immediately.
Dedicated Empty Leg Page
Your website should have a dedicated empty leg page that serves two purposes: capturing email sign-ups from buyers who want alerts, and ranking for empty leg searches on your primary routes and aircraft types.
The page should include:
- A clear explanation of what an empty leg is and why the pricing is different from regular charter
- Any current availability (updated in real time where possible, or with a note that availability changes rapidly)
- An email sign-up form for availability alerts
- A direct enquiry form or phone number for buyers who prefer to call
- Content that addresses the common questions: what happens if the primary booking is cancelled, how far in advance are empty legs typically confirmed, what routes does your operation most commonly produce empty legs on
The page should not be a static brochure. It should be a functional tool for buyers who are actively monitoring for an opportunity. For more on structuring this, see our empty leg marketing service page.
Retargeting for Empty Leg Visitors
Buyers who visit your empty leg page without converting are worth retargeting. A Google or Meta retargeting audience built from empty leg page visitors can be targeted with dynamic creative when specific empty legs become available that match the routes those visitors were interested in. The audience is small but intent is high, and cost per reach is low.
SEO for Empty Legs: Capturing Route-Based Demand
Empty leg SEO requires a different approach from regular charter SEO because availability is constantly changing. You cannot optimise a page around specific departure dates. What you can do is optimise for the persistent search intent: buyers who regularly search for empty legs on specific routes or from specific bases.
The most effective approach is route-based content that targets the corridors your operation most commonly produces empty legs on. A page built around "empty leg charter [origin] to [destination]" or "empty leg [base city]" captures buyers who return repeatedly to those searches, and it builds general charter authority for those corridors that benefits regular booking enquiries as well.
Key principles for empty leg SEO:
- Prioritise routes and aircraft types your fleet actually produces empty legs on — not aspirational routes
- Include operational context: realistic sector times, aircraft options, typical availability windows for your fleet
- Make the email sign-up prominent — a buyer who lands on your page when no immediate availability exists should be captured for the next one
- Internal link to your main empty leg service page, your aircraft pages, and your primary charter enquiry path
Paid Search for Empty Legs: When It Works
Google Ads for empty legs requires discipline on targeting. Broad empty leg terms attract buyers who are purely opportunistic and will not convert unless the price, route, and timing all line up perfectly on the day they see the ad. The click cost is real even when the conversion is zero.
Where paid search works for empty legs:
- Route-specific terms when an actual empty leg on that route is available — turn the campaign on, fill the sector, turn it off
- Retargeting against past empty leg enquirers and website visitors — high intent, low cost per reach
- Competition terms where buyers are specifically comparing empty leg options across operators
Where it does not work: running an always-on broad empty leg campaign hoping to match random availability to random demand. The conversion economics do not work at scale unless your volume of empty legs is very high.
Converting Empty Leg Passengers Into Full-Rate Charter Clients
The most overlooked part of an empty leg marketing strategy is what happens after the flight. An empty leg passenger who enjoyed the experience, trusted the crew, and arrived on time is an ideal candidate to become a repeat charter client. The conversion rate from an empty leg flight to a subsequent full-rate booking is significantly higher than cold acquisition — if the operator makes the transition easy.
The mechanism is straightforward:
Post-flight follow-up. An email sent within 24 hours of an empty leg flight, thanking the passenger and presenting the standard charter offering for their next trip, captures attention when experience and satisfaction are at their peak. Most operators never send this email.
Preference capture. Ask during or after the booking what routes they typically need, when they tend to fly, and whether they have corporate or personal travel needs. This data makes the relationship more valuable on both sides and creates a basis for proactive outreach when relevant availability appears.
Preferred client programme. Charter operators with enough empty leg volume can create a structured programme for frequent empty leg travellers — priority notification, consistent pricing, or simplified booking — that builds loyalty without discounting full-rate trips.
The empty leg is not a discount channel. It is an acquisition channel. The operators who treat it that way build a client base that grows with each sector flown.
For a complete review of your lead generation and client acquisition approach, see our private jet lead generation page. For the full empty leg service overview, see our empty leg marketing page.
