Cheap is relative in private aviation, but the gap between the list price and what a flexible traveler pays is enormous. Most of that gap lives in one product, the empty leg. This guide covers the real options, in order of how much they save, and skips the ones that are just lead forms with a discount in the headline.
An empty leg is a flight the aircraft has to make anyway, sold at a deep discount rather than flown empty. It is the only way to fly a private jet for a genuine fraction of its cost, typically 35% to 80% off charter, and it is what most "cheap private jet" searches are really looking for. The catch is the shape: one way, on roughly the operator's schedule, between the places the aircraft was already going. If you can bend your trip to that shape, nothing else comes close. How to find them and what they cost each have their own guide.
Slightly different from an empty leg. Some operators price one-way trips on routes where they know they can sell the return, or where they have aircraft based at both ends, so the positioning cost you would normally pay disappears. Discounts are smaller than a true empty leg but the departure time is yours. These often appear in the same operator availability lists that EmpTleg tracks, which is why the search says "empty legs and discounted one-ways".
Semi-private carriers sell individual seats on scheduled flights from private terminals, on set routes, at a few hundred dollars a seat. Some jet-card and membership programs also sell seats on selected repositioning flights. This is the cheapest way to sit on a private aircraft, and it is also the least private: fixed schedules, fixed routes, other people. It suits a solo traveler on a popular route; it does not suit a family with a destination in mind. EmpTleg does not list seats; every price on EmpTleg buys the whole aircraft.
A full charter gets cheaper when you fly on a Tuesday instead of a Friday, out of the quiet field instead of the busy one, in the smallest aircraft that fits the trip, and on a route where the operator has an aircraft already based. None of that is a discount product; it is just how charter pricing works, and a good broker will build a quote around it. It is the right answer when the trip cannot move, and the wrong answer when it can.
A "request a quote" form that promises up to 75% off and sells your trip to several brokers is not a cheap private jet flight; it is a lead. A representative photo beside a listing is not the aircraft you will fly. An "empty leg" that can depart any day you like is a charter. The test for any site is simple: does it hand you the operator, or does it quote you? If you cannot tell who you are buying from, someone is standing between you and the aircraft.
Per person, a seat on a semi-private or shared flight. For a whole aircraft, an empty leg, which typically runs 35% to 80% below the same flight as a charter.
An empty leg is flown by the same licensed Part 135 operator, crew and aircraft as the charter that created it. The discount comes from the positioning economics, not from the operation. Book with the operator directly and confirm the details in writing.
Same day is common for empty legs, because operators would rather fill the flight than fly it empty. See the last-minute guide for how to be ready when one appears.
No. EmpTleg is a search and alert service. You contact the operator directly, book at the operator's price, and we take no commission.
EmpTleg is a search and alert service, not a broker. Market figures on this page are broad 2026 industry ranges for context, not quotes; every price on a listing is set by the operator and confirmed by them directly.