Empty legs are what the private aviation industry calls a fancy jet, sitting at an airport idle, paid-for crew waiting around, watching ESPN, and food getting moldy – with no customer to pick up the tab. So, to get that plane and crew back to where it started, or needs to be, operators sell ‘empty leg’ trips at a deep discount.

According to Greg Johnson, the CEO of OneSky Jets, of the 2,700 private jet flights each day, as many as 40% fly empty, and could be booked for travel, saving the buyer some real coin. Today’s Wall Street Journal (sub. required), reports a Seattle-Vegas trip would be normally be about $20,000 to fly private, but that could be had for as little as $6,000 if you found an empty leg.

There are several ways to check empty leg availability. Try any or all of these:

• OneSky Jets
• Jets.com
• Sentient Jet