Every State Ranked by Private Jet Empty Leg Activity, and the Airport That Leads in Each
Florida tops a 51-way ranking of empty leg listings on the SkyAccess marketplace over the trailing 12 months, and in many states the busiest airport is not the one with the airline terminals.
- 381,278 unique empty leg listings touched a US airport as an origin or destination in the trailing 12 months on the SkyAccess marketplace.
- Florida leads with 134,360 legs, more than the combined total of the 31 lowest-ranked states and districts (ranks 21-51).
- Teterboro Airport (KTEB) alone recorded 30,049 legs, out-counting the statewide totals of 46 of the 51 states and districts.
- In 6 of the 10 busiest states, the top airport is a dedicated business aviation field with no scheduled commercial airline service.
The national picture
Empty legs are the repositioning flights that private jet operators publish when an aircraft must fly without paying passengers, typically after dropping off one charter and before picking up the next. Over the trailing 12 months, 381,278 unique empty leg listings on the SkyAccess marketplace touched a US airport as an origin or destination, a dataset large enough to map where this activity actually concentrates, state by state.
The geography is lopsided. Activity clusters along the Florida peninsula, the Northeast corridor, Southern California, and Texas, then thins rapidly across the interior. The top five states each posted more than 31,000 legs; the bottom five each posted fewer than 1,500. One accounting note before reading the table: a flight between two states counts toward both states’ totals, so the state rows sum to more than the unique national figure. The full disclosure appears in the methodology, and ongoing monthly trends are tracked in the SkyAccess Empty Leg Index.
The top of the table: Florida through New York
Florida is not merely first; it is first by a margin that reshapes the rest of the list. Its 134,360 legs exceed the combined total of the 31 lowest-ranked states and districts, ranks 21 through 51. The state’s busiest field is Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (KOPF) with 20,827 legs, a dedicated business aviation airport about ten miles north of Miami International.
California follows with 88,909 legs, led by Van Nuys Airport (KVNY) at 19,300, the San Fernando Valley field that has long served as Los Angeles’ private aviation gateway. Texas posts 63,679 legs, topped by Dallas Love Field (KDAL) with 9,457.
Fourth-ranked New Jersey is the clearest case of a single airport carrying a state. Teterboro Airport (KTEB) recorded 30,049 legs, most of the state’s 38,276. Teterboro alone out-counts the statewide totals of 46 of the 51 states and districts in this ranking; only Florida, California, Texas, New Jersey itself, and New York posted higher totals. New York rounds out the top five with 31,051 legs, and its busiest field is not a New York City airport at all but Westchester County Airport (KHPN) with 13,255.
The surprises farther down
Nebraska ranks 18th with 11,134 legs, ahead of Michigan (9,596) and Wisconsin (9,170), on the strength of Eppley Airfield in Omaha, which logged 4,883 legs on its own. Wyoming, the state with the smallest population, ranks 29th by volume with 5,360 legs, carried by Jackson Hole Airport (KJAC), which accounts for 3,823 of them.
The busiest-airport column holds its own surprises. Wisconsin’s leader is Appleton International Airport (KATW), not Milwaukee Mitchell. Iowa’s is Iowa City Municipal Airport (KIOW), not Des Moines. Mississippi’s is University-Oxford Airport (KUOX), a field owned by the University of Mississippi. And West Virginia’s is Greenbrier Valley Airport (KLWB), the airport serving The Greenbrier resort, evidence that in lower-volume states a single resort, campus, or corporate anchor can define the entire market.
Why the busiest airport is often not the commercial hub
In 6 of the 10 busiest states, the top airport is a dedicated business aviation field with no scheduled commercial airline service: Miami-Opa Locka (KOPF), Van Nuys (KVNY), Teterboro (KTEB), Centennial (KAPA), DeKalb-Peachtree (KPDK), and Scottsdale (KSDL). The other four leaders, Dallas Love Field (KDAL), Harry Reid International (KLAS), Westchester County (KHPN), and Raleigh-Durham International (KRDU), do host airline service.
The pattern reflects how private aviation actually operates. Reliever airports offer dedicated terminals for private flights, faster ground handling, and none of the congestion or slot pressure of a major hub, while still sitting close to the city centers travelers want to reach. A jet repositioning out of the Los Angeles area departs Van Nuys, not LAX; one leaving metro Atlanta departs DeKalb-Peachtree, not Hartsfield-Jackson. The same dynamic appears in many states beyond the top 10, with Chicago Executive Airport (KPWK) leading Illinois, Laurence G. Hanscom Field (KBED) leading Massachusetts, Oakland County International (KPTK) leading Michigan, Spirit of St. Louis (KSUS) leading Missouri, Boeing Field (KBFI) leading Washington, and Lakefront Airport (KNEW) leading Louisiana.
What this means for empty leg travelers
For travelers, the table doubles as a shopping map. Volume translates directly into choice: a searcher in Florida, California, or the New York metro area sees a steady flow of repositioning flights, while a searcher in North Dakota or Alaska is watching a market measured in hundreds of legs per year, where flexibility on dates and airports matters far more.
The second lesson is to search by the right airport. In many states the empty leg market runs through a business aviation field rather than the airport with the airline terminals, so a traveler filtering only for the commercial hub can miss most of the local supply. In smaller markets, activity concentrates almost entirely at one field: Wilmington Airport accounts for 1,261 of Delaware’s 1,550 legs, Patrick Leahy Burlington International for 1,086 of Vermont’s 1,539, and every one of the District of Columbia’s 214 legs touched Ronald Reagan Washington National (KDCA). SkyAccess publishes airport-level breakdowns like its data profile of private jet traffic at Trump International Airport (KDJT) for travelers who want to go deeper than the state view.
Methodology
Figures are proprietary SkyAccess marketplace data pulled on Aug. 27, 2026 from the production database. The dataset covers unique empty leg listings published on the SkyAccess marketplace with a departure in the trailing 12 months, counting past flights only and excluding deleted listings. A total of 381,278 unique listings touched a US airport as an origin or destination in the window. A flight between two states counts toward both states’ totals, so the 51 state rows sum to more than the unique national total. Each state’s busiest airport is the field with the most legs touching it as origin or destination; KDCA is assigned to the District of Columbia by the FAA. Comparative claims in this story (Florida versus ranks 21-51 combined, and Teterboro versus statewide totals) were computed from the same dataset. These are marketplace listings, not FAA operations counts and not a census of all private jet traffic; marketplace coverage varies by region and grew over the window, so state-to-state comparisons describe activity on the marketplace and no year-over-year market conclusions should be drawn.
SkyAccess is a real-time private jet and empty leg marketplace at skyaccess.com, listing 5,000+ live empty leg flights from a network of 900+ certified charter operators.
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