Empty leg flights to and from Aberdeen

Aberdeen works differently from any other British city in this business. It has the shortest runway of Scotland's three main airports, the busiest commercial heliport in the world sitting beside it, and a private aviation market driven almost entirely by one industry rather than by holidays. More than half of everything that moves here is a helicopter going offshore.

For empty legs that produces an unusual pattern. The corridors are corporate and they run all year rather than in a season, the sectors are short, and the money lives in routes that barely register anywhere else in Britain: Stavanger, Bergen and Sumburgh, alongside the central belt. What it does not produce is cheap long haul, and the runway is a large part of the reason.

Empty legs from Aberdeen right now

The board below shows what our operator network has released on north east routes. Aberdeen produces fewer sectors than the central belt, and the ones it does produce are among the least contested in the country, because hardly anybody thinks to look here.

Where Aberdeen sectors come from

Three things move private aircraft in and out of the north east, and all three are business rather than pleasure.

Aberdeen Airport in detail

What the field can take, when it is open, how the handling works and what happens on the ground.

The heliport next door

Aberdeen has the busiest commercial heliport in the world alongside it, and that explains most of what makes the airport unusual.

Around 468,000 offshore passenger journeys pass through the dedicated helicopter terminals here every year, carried on more than 37,000 movements by four operators. That is more than half of all aircraft movements at the airport. The North Sea helicopter operation began in 1967 and has run ever since, and it remains the busiest commercial heliport in the world.

For a private passenger this matters in three practical ways. The airfield is used to serious, safety led operations rather than leisure traffic, which shows in how briskly things are done. It is also built around helicopter flying, so an onward leg to an estate or Aviemore is a familiar request rather than a special one. And the rhythm of the airport follows crew change days and weather windows rather than Friday evenings and school holidays, which is why the working weeks here fall in different places from those in Edinburgh or Glasgow.

The private terminal

The main business aviation centre at Aberdeen is run by Signature on Wellheads Drive, a short distance from the passenger building and with its own approach. It is staffed from 06:30 to 21:30 every day, with a call out available outside those hours. A second handler, Primeflight, also works the field, and Gama Aviation runs an air ambulance operation from the east side of the airport.

Fifteen minutes ahead of a domestic sector is enough and thirty before an international one. On an empty leg the terminal comes with the operator rather than being chosen, and the address and the crew contact appear in the flight brief.

What the ground costs

Aberdeen is inexpensive by the standards of the cities further south, and for once that is not the number that matters most.

That last one is worth more than all the others put together. With almost nothing based in the north east, a charter out of Aberdeen normally includes the cost of flying an aircraft up from England or Europe first, and on a short trip that positioning flight can cost more than the flight you actually take. An empty leg removes it entirely, which is why the saving here is often among the largest in Britain in percentage terms.

The other fields in the north

Aberdeen does almost all the work, but the geography here is unforgiving and the right field can save two hours in a car.

Getting into the city and out to the country

Aberdeen Airport sits close to its own city centre, and the distances that matter after that are large. These are typical off peak times by road.

Helicopter transfers are arranged alongside the flight, and on a field built around helicopter operations that is a familiar request. For Speyside, Deeside or the Cairngorms that turns a long drive at the end of a flight into twenty to twenty five minutes in the air.

Popular destinations from Aberdeen, and which way they run empty

This list looks nothing like the one you would draw up for a southern city, and that is the point. These are working corridors rather than holiday ones, they run all year, and several of them are rare from anywhere else in Britain.

You will notice there is no Dubai and no New York in that table, and the runway is part of the reason. On the longest sectors it can limit how much fuel a long range jet leaves with, so a genuinely long haul trip is often planned with a fuel stop or a short positioning leg to a longer field first. We will tell you which applies before you commit rather than after.

Online calculator

If you want to see what your route would cost as a standard charter, so you have something to measure an empty leg against, use the calculator below. Fill in the airports, the dates and the number of passengers, add any preference on aircraft type, and we will send a written calculation by email or messenger. Please check your contact details carefully so that we can reply quickly.

The figure the calculator returns is an estimate for planning. The firm quote comes back from our consultants with the cost broken out line by line, and the price agreed there is the price written into the contract.

If you would rather skip the arithmetic, send us the route and the dates instead and a consultant will come back with both numbers, the charter price and any empty leg that fits.

Arriving in Aberdeen from abroad

Scotland is part of the United Kingdom for every immigration and customs purpose, so the formalities are the same as anywhere else in Britain and most of them are settled before you travel.

• Passenger details go in with the booking. Every passenger is submitted with a full name, a date of birth, a nationality and a passport number. The operator files a General Aviation Report on each international movement, and that filing closes some hours ahead of the flight rather than at the gate.
• Electronic travel authorisation. Visitors from countries that do not need a visa now require an ETA before travelling to the UK, and it applies on a private flight exactly as it does on a scheduled one. Norwegian passport holders need one too. It costs twenty pounds, lasts two years unless the passport runs out sooner, and is checked against the operator's arrival report before departure, so a missing ETA stops the trip at the steps rather than at the border. Crew operating the flight are exempt.
• Norway flights are international. The Stavanger and Bergen corridors clear customs and immigration in both directions, like any flight to Europe, and Norway applies its own customs rules because it sits outside the European Union.
• Air Passenger Duty until 31 March 2027. From 1 April 2027 Scotland replaces it with its own Air Departure Tax, at the same rates and bands in the first year, and a separate supplement for private jets is planned from April 2028. Unlike Inverness or Sumburgh, Aberdeen sits outside the Highlands and Islands exemption, so the duty normally applies to departures from here. From April 2027 flights from Aberdeen into the region, Sumburgh among them, are due to be exempt, although private jets may be left out. Either way the duty appears as its own line in any quote we send.

Empty leg calendar for Aberdeen, month by month

Aberdeen runs on a corporate calendar rather than a holiday one, which makes it one of the more predictable cities on this part of the map. The energy year has its own rhythm, and once you know it the good weeks are easy to spot.

October, March, April and May are the months to aim for. The week to plan around falls every second September, when the offshore exhibition arrives and the whole city, including the apron, fills up. If your dates land in that week, treat it as a charter booked well in advance rather than a sector you might catch.

Three situations, three answers

Travelling with a dog or a cat

Aberdeen is not one of the airports approved for pets arriving on private flights from abroad, so an animal coming back from Europe or Norway normally lands at Edinburgh or Glasgow and continues by road, about two and a half hours from Edinburgh. Flights within the United Kingdom, Belfast and Sumburgh among them, need no approved route.

The conditions are the same as everywhere and they are checked rather than assumed: for an arrival into Great Britain both the operator and the route have to hold the relevant approvals. Departing, the rules are those of your destination, and the Norwegian corridors have their own requirements that we confirm with the booking. Tell us about the animal in the first message and we will plan the routing around it.

Questions about flying private from Aberdeen

Call +44 7857 574938, message the same number on WhatsApp, or write to flight@empty-leg.co.uk. Tell us the route and the window you can travel in, and we will watch the north east corridors for you.