Short notice is the empty leg's home turf. A leg posted this morning for a departure tonight is the one the operator is most motivated to fill and the one most travelers never see. If you can move on a few hours' notice, this is the best deal in private aviation, and here is how to be the person who gets it.
An empty leg's value to the operator falls every hour it goes unsold, and it reaches zero at wheels-up. Ten days out they will hold for a good price; the night before, anything above the cost of a passenger's catering is found money. The same is true of aircraft released by a cancellation, which produce the odd genuine last-minute charter bargain when the operator has crew and aircraft positioned for a trip that no longer exists.
Same-day legs are posted to the operator's availability page and, more often, sent to their email list, because there is no time for a web page to be found. EmpTleg re-harvests those pages and lists several times a day, so a leg that was posted at 9am is searchable by late morning and in a subscriber's inbox if it matches a saved route. The live map on the homepage shows what is moving right now, and each airport page carries a live count, for example Teterboro or Van Nuys.
One way, an entire aircraft, a departure window set by the aircraft's schedule with some give in it, and a price that is a fraction of charter. Once confirmed these flights are generally reliable, because the underlying flight has to happen; if the operator's schedule shifts, they will usually work to keep yours intact and sometimes move you to a larger aircraft to do it. Pack for the possibility of an earlier or later departure than posted.
If the trip is fixed, urgent and not near any posted leg, the answer is a full charter, and short notice does not make that cheaper unless an operator happens to have a released aircraft. In that case use the empty-leg search anyway: the airport pages show which fields have aircraft moving today, which is exactly where a broker will find you a positioned aircraft at a sane price.
Often, yes. Same-day empty legs are common, and operators can sometimes launch a charter within a few hours of a confirmed booking if aircraft and crew are available. Empty legs are the cheaper of the two by a wide margin.
Popular routes can go within an hour of posting. Alerts on a saved route are the only reliable way to see them in time.
No more than any empty leg. The flight is happening regardless, which is what makes it an empty leg. Confirm directly with the operator and get the quote in writing.
No. EmpTleg finds the leg and gives you the operator's contact. You book directly with the operator, at their price, with no commission taken by EmpTleg.
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.