Route optimization software reduced private jet empty legs. Here is what that means for buyers.

There are fewer empty legs than there were five years ago. Not fewer flights. Fewer repositioning gaps. The operators filling those gaps have gotten better at avoiding them, and the software doing that work has reshaped what buyers find when they search.

What route optimization actually does

For most of private aviation’s history, empty legs were an unavoidable consequence of on-demand charter. An operator flew a client from New York to Miami. The aircraft had to come back. That return flight was empty, discounted to offset costs, and listed as an empty leg.

Modern fleet management software changes the math. Platforms used by operators, including widely adopted tools in the charter industry, now analyze demand patterns across entire regions and suggest charter pickups that reduce or eliminate repositioning gaps. Instead of flying empty from Miami to New York to pick up the next charter, the software finds a charter that departs Miami or routes through a nearby market. The empty leg that would have existed simply does not.

The result, documented in WINGX annual private aviation utilization reports, is a structural decline in the share of private jet movements that are empty repositioning flights. Operators are not eliminating empty legs entirely; the economics of charter still produce them regularly. But the easiest gaps are being optimized away, and what remains tends to be either time-compressed (the leg departs within 24 to 72 hours) or on routes that are genuinely difficult to fill with a matching charter.

What this means for the buyer

Empty leg listings available today skew shorter-notice and narrower-window than they did five years ago. The long-advance, comfortable-schedule legs that buyers once found two weeks out are less common. Operators running optimized fleets hold those slots for matching charter revenue as long as possible, then release them as empty legs only when the window closes.

On SkyAccess’s empty leg marketplace, the majority of listings with the deepest discounts carry departure windows inside 72 hours. That is not an accident of curation. It reflects the underlying shift: the legs that survive optimization tend to be the ones with the tightest positioning constraints, and those operators price them aggressively to recover costs quickly.

Buyers who want the most options should search across a rolling window, not a fixed date. An empty leg from Los Angeles to New York on a specific Thursday may not exist. The same corridor on any day in a two-week window will show several, because repositioning demand for that corridor is real and continuous.

Why pricing is tighter than it used to be

Optimization also affects price. When operators had more unsold empty legs, they competed against each other to fill seats. That competition produced historically aggressive pricing. Today, operators with optimized fleets have fewer surplus legs to fill, and the ones they do list are priced to recover costs from a shorter window. The gap between an empty leg price and a standard charter price has narrowed on some routes.

The 25 to 75 percent discount range that defines empty leg economics (compared to standard on-demand charter on the same route and aircraft) still holds. But the median discount is closer to 40 to 50 percent on most US corridors in 2026, not the 60 to 75 percent that was achievable on the same routes in the early 2020s. That compression is a direct result of operators filling gaps more efficiently before they reach the listing stage.

What still makes empty legs worth searching

Routing software reduces the number of available legs. It does not eliminate them. Private aviation demand is inherently uneven: high from coastal metros on Fridays, high into resort markets before holiday weekends, high out of business hubs after major events. Those demand spikes create repositioning needs that no software fully absorbs. The legs that survive optimization on these corridors represent genuine operator surplus, and they are the ones most likely to carry significant discounts.

SkyAccess aggregates available listings from certified Part 135 charter operators across these demand corridors in real time. The platform’s search reflects current operator availability, not a cached snapshot. For buyers willing to search opportunistically, the supply is real; it is simply more concentrated in the near-term window and in corridors with structural demand imbalance.

Frequently asked questions

Are there fewer empty leg flights available now than before?

Yes, in relative terms. Route optimization software used by charter operators has reduced the number of repositioning flights that reach the listing stage. Operators can now match charters to fill gaps that previously became empty legs. The legs that do get listed tend to be shorter-notice and on routes with structural demand imbalance that software cannot resolve.

Have empty leg discounts gotten smaller?

On many US corridors, the median discount has compressed compared to five years ago, because operators have fewer surplus legs competing for buyers. The 25 to 75 percent range versus standard charter still holds, but legs at the deeper end of that range are more time-compressed than they once were.

What is the best way to find an empty leg in 2026?

Search a corridor window rather than a fixed date. Most available empty legs on a given route appear inside a 72-hour window because that is when operators release legs that optimization could not fill with charter. Platforms like SkyAccess update listings continuously as operators publish newly available legs.

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• Empty legs: domestic vs. international, and what changes
• Are empty leg flights worth it? An honest cost-benefit