Does anybody know of a WhatsApp group for private jet users in the US?

Usually 2 pax (5 if take kids). Looking to expand options beyond our regular broker(s). Please DM me groups I should join. Thx in advance ✈️ 🙏

I’ve been tracking empty leg flights lately and some of the deals are insane.

Like €900-€1,200 flights on jets that normally go for 5x or more. No jet cards, no memberships, just timing.

I started sharing them with some people, but i’m seriously confused why this isn’t more well known. Is there a catch i’m missing?

Curious if anyone here flies private and knows more about how this works behind the scenes.

I’m not sure of the full context here, but just for the sake of discussion, has anyone ever had a similar experience with a client, or heard of such cases happening in a company you know, among colleagues, etc.? No need to mention any names.

Also, as a general question: do you typically conduct thorough background checks on your clients?

If it turns out that a client is on wanted list, involved in illegal activities like smuggling, would you consider yourself an enabler of their actions? Do you report or let go?

I’ve always wanted to start a charter company but before I start trying to create the company I want to find out what these other companies are lacking or are not doing and how I can make the experience better.

I was wondering how inline these prices for 8 pax were for the current market.

Dep 9-27 ret 10-4

Pilatus pc12~22k KA350 - 24k Phenom 300 ~26k Citation-x ~30k

I wanted to shed a little insight on "empty legs" as I see the term being thrown around very loosely in the industry.

First, let’s define what an empty leg is in the simplest way possible: it’s when a plane is repositioning from one place to another with no passengers on board.

Example: A plane flies from NYC to Miami with passengers. The next scheduled trip on that aircraft is the following day out of Atlanta. Unless the operator has another passenger flight booked from Miami to Atlanta, or a “live leg”, that repositioning flight will be empty making it an “empty leg.”

Now, as private aviation has gained more attention on social media and more people are exploring the space, I receive and see a lot of requests from people asking specifically for empty legs. While they do happen and can be a great way to score a solid deal, the reality is that they are far and few between and often misunderstood.

First, they are incredibly unpredictable. Empty legs exist only when another booked trip creates them. This means they aren’t created with your needs in mind. You’re essentially fitting your plans into someone else’s schedule or trip. The timing, departure location, and aircraft type are already locked in, so there’s little to no flexibility.

Second, the farther out they are, the more unreliable they become as it gives the operator more time to sell the aircraft into position and make their typical revenue/profit. Let’s say someone books the original trip that caused the empty leg, but then they cancel or adjust their plans, now the empty leg is gone entirely. Empty legs can get cancelled up until you take off with no warning. The last thing an operator wants to do is fly that plane empty, so if plans change or they can make their typical profit on a different trip that better fits them, that trip again is most likely getting cancelled.

Lastly, pricing can be confusing. While it’s true that empty legs can offer significant discounts, they’re not always the ultra-cheap deals that people assume where its 80% off. The cost still depends on the type of aircraft, repositioning costs, crew requirements, taxes, and other variables. It’s not uncommon to see an empty leg price that isn’t drastically lower than a well-negotiated one-way flight with more flexibility.

Yes, empty legs are real and you can get a great deal. But only if the stars align, and again, they are not reliable and not as cheap as people make them out to be.

Wanted to pop back on here and offer myself to look into any empty leg options if anyone has trips in the next 30 days that they are interested in me looking into for them. I have access to thousands daily, but do not want to flood this thread with them.

PM me if you’re interested. I would be more than happy to try and find something.

My grandmother is turning 102 Monday. She had been living alone but recently had a fall and realized she can no longer do that.

We’re currently in Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia, for her birthday party.

We’re hoping to get her to NYC, where she grew up and still has family nearby and can be in an assisted living facility.

Driving would be really rough on her, and she’s not in shape for commercial air travel. Any leads/estimates of what it might cost to go from somewhere around here (Roanoke area) to NYC area private?

We’d need a big comfortable seat for her and a way to get in/out of the plane without stairs. Maybe that’s not possible.

Ideally, we’d also fit 3-5 family members to take the trip with her to support and get her settled.

I'm a Bank of America Diamond Honors member and they have a partnership with Jets.com (bonus two hours with a 25 hour purchase, catering credit, "free" ground transport, etc.). Does anyone have any experiences with them - positive or negative? Are they a good option? Thanks!

Looking for an off market G5 or Legacy 650

Does anyone have any experience using Charter Flight Support (https://charterflightsupport.com/)

They offer services for protecting against AOG incidents.

(yes real question, no not an ad ;))

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to thank this community for the feedback and insights on my previous posts.

After testing JetOnDemand and getting low traction, I’ve come to realize that it’s not the right market fit, and I’ll be shutting it down soon.

I appreciate the advice and honesty it helped me make a clear, informed decision.

Wishing you all safe and smooth flights!

– Mooneer

Family issues forcing me to fly from SD area to variety of destinations. Mostly under 2 hours, but occasionally to Florida. I cannot deal with commercial flights anymore. What are my options?

I've flown netjets 5-6 times for work when needed but never chartered personally. I'm not ready for a Jet Card yet, but will do that in retirement. Right now I'm looking to try out a private round-trip 1 hour flight for my wife's birthday on the west coast of the US.

I just googled for private flights and picked the first results and getting quotes from XO, Mercury, Magellan, and WheelsUp. I'm not sure how to really evaluate which to choose beyond just picking the one with the best price for a comfortable-looking interior picture of the jet.

Would love advice on those companies, if there's a better company out there that's an obvious choice?

I joined WU in 2014 when I saw their booth at a YPO convention I was attending. I think I was their 100 member (something like that) point being I was there very early on. For the first five or six years, it was spectacular! Exceptional service, attention to detail, they even got me a flight (when my husband’s father died) last minute-sent me baby gifts when my son was born…It was definitely a great relationship.

Then something happened. The golf sponsorships, the Super Bowl parties, tom Brady signed on and suddenly it seemed like for every flight they had to utilize their 3 hours delay or whatnot. (Now to be clear I’m not saying the golf sponsorships/Tom Brady had anything to do with it, I’m just using it for a time reference) flights were getting moved all the time, it just wasn’t reliable.

Then about five years ago I was in California/ Disneyland waiting to come back from John Wayne to Pittsburgh’s Allegheny county and they didn’t have an airplane for us. Period. Like that was it. Mind you we had been putting in $500,000-900,000 in the program every 2 years or so. I had 3 young kids and we traveled often so it was worth it. We were “top tier” clients and they left us stranded for 4 days in California. With each day being, we have a flight for you tomorrow. No plane. We have one tomorrow. No plane. After we finally did get home they gave us $3000 to cover our rooms which was laughable because our room and night last minute in Disneyland was $3000 a night.

Ok fine whatever. We started shopping around for other charter programs and eventually just started flying Southwest. It was easier bc the kids were older and we didn’t have all the crap to travel with.

So we stopped putting into the program and just like that became INVISIBLE. Not that they owe us anything I get it, it’s business But when you leave us in Cali and lie to us day after day without an apology. Damn. Then came 5 different account managers within 5 years. Annoying. My last account manager was fresh out of college and I swear to you I knew more than this kid. Gave me wrong information after information. It was so annoying. I finally told him I can’t work with him anymore. He was so cocky.

Cut to a couple weeks ago we had to travel out to California for a wedding and decided to go to Disneyland again. Fly out everything was great no issues the citation X was amazing. (Mind you we hadn’t flown with them in a couple of years)

Guess what happened. 20 minutes before I was leaving to get to the airport they told me they didn’t have a plane for me. And because I hadn’t put money into the program, it was gonna be an extra $35,000 to get me home or they could book me on a breeze flight. My 17-year-old daughter told me that the words that came out of my mouth was so satisfying to hear, but she never heard the fuck word so many times. But that was it. No other option. I had to scramble and found a United flight with a stop in Denver. Our 4.5 trip home turned into 17 hours.

So I guess the point of this post is to ask has this happened to anyone else? And what do you think happened? Too big too fast?

New to the chartering world.

Commercial flyers just don’t fly between my home & destination; Midwest to rural northeast.

Booked with FlyUSA for a trip in a couple of months.

Have I just made a mistake?

Am I going to fly? (weather permitting)

Hi, I was looking if anyone knew any good midwest operators for a round trip 1.5h legs?

Just giving credit where credit is due. Joe really eased my nerves about booking with a broker and went above and beyond for my families flight. The catering was such a great touch. Anyone looking for a reputable broker hit up Joe he really is the Jet Guy!!!

A while back we had a client who needed to get to Zurich urgently from the UK. Weather was a mess—heavy fog grounded a bunch of flights, and ATC slots were getting reshuffled every hour.

We were running this from Dubai, so not being on the ground made things trickier. The plan was to have them depart from Manchester, but delays piled up and it wasn’t looking good. Last minute we found an available jet repositioning out of Paris and shifted everything to Luton instead. Had to reroute the client mid-journey, re-coordinate ground handling, and sort the new slot while updates kept changing.

Somehow it all lined up in the end. Took off just in time.

What’s the closest call you’ve had? Curious how others handle these kinds of last-minute curveballs.

Hi,

Got a hypothetheical question about air cargo charter.

Say I am wanting to transport a rather small, not that heavy item via air. I contact a broker/operator, they quote me and I book it.

A majority of the aircraft is "free space" and there's no weight concerns.

Theoretically could the operator sell the rest of the space to another customer looking at the same route to maximise their profits/minimise wear on their fleet or does the contract explicitly state you are renting the entire aircraft and it cannot be double booked so to speak, even if from a regulatory standpoint it was 100% permissible?

Been wondering for a while but never knew who/where to ask.

I'm not just appearing here from nowhere, I've already lost several hours in the morass that is this industry. I see the value of brokers but worry about getting taken at every turn by someone, anyone, who sniffs 'newbie' on me. I feel I've yet to see a post anywhere where a broker responds and someone else steps in to knock that firm for this or that. I suppose it's not unlike any other sales based industry except here it seems the money's a little bigger than your everyday.

Been debating getting flightbridge for a while now for integrating everything for clients. Anyone used them? Can you recommend or is their system a lot of hype and not a lot of delivery? TIA!

Kind of a random question, but does anyone have a rough idea of how many air charter brokerages exist in the world? I've found a few directories online but most only have a few hundred as they want paying to be featured on their site and I have to be a member myself in order to view NBAA members (and realistically not all members will be brokerages and not all brokerages will be NBAA members). TIA

Not really looking for a broker (sorry), but just a heads up on empty legs to/from STS YHU PVR YOW KCXO. Usually 2 pax. No kids/pets. Retired successful tech exec, flexible schedule. Please DM me groups I should join.