Empty leg flights to and from Bordeaux

Bordeaux is the capital of one of the world's best known wine regions, a UNESCO listed city on the Garonne and the gateway to the châteaux of the Médoc and Saint Émilion, the oyster beds of Arcachon Bay and the beaches of Cap Ferret. Private flights use Bordeaux Mérignac Airport, code BOD, about 12 kilometres west of the centre, where business jets have their own terminal run by AviaVIP. From London the flight takes about 1h 30m.

Mérignac is also the home of Dassault Aviation, which assembles every Falcon business jet and maintains many of them on the same airfield, so aircraft come and go here for reasons that have nothing to do with tourism. We book the terminal, the car and the château visits with the flight, and every quote shows the French tax on the way home.

Bordeaux sectors available today

The first list below gathers every sector we hold into or out of Bordeaux Mérignac, and brings in Bergerac, Arcachon and Biarritz when a flight is released there. Underneath sits a charter list for those aircraft on dates you choose, which shows at a glance how much an empty leg takes off the usual fare.

Why Bordeaux produces empty legs

Bordeaux is only an hour and a half from southern England, so operators rarely keep a crew waiting for a wine weekend, and several flows of traffic particular to the city add aircraft that fly one way without passengers.

Released sectors appear most often from April to October, with peaks around En Primeurs week, the summer holidays and the harvest, and on weekday business routes all year. The quietest months are January and February.

Bordeaux Mérignac Airport in detail

Aviation at Mérignac goes back to before the First World War, and the airport now shares its runways with the air force base BA 106 and with Dassault's final assembly plant. Since November 2025 the airport has presented itself as Bordeaux Aéroport. It handled 6.6 million passengers in 2024 and about 5.9 million in 2025, after Ryanair closed its base, and it is investing 65 million euros in 2026 as part of a plan that includes a new central building between Halls A and B, due by the end of 2028.

For crews Bordeaux is a straightforward airport: two long runways, mild Atlantic weather and no slot pressure. The only operational wrinkle is the military traffic from BA 106 and the test and delivery flights from Dassault, which the tower works into the flow. Fog can form in the Garonne valley on autumn and winter mornings, and Bergerac and Biarritz are the usual alternates.

Night flying is under discussion. In January 2025 the prefect of Gironde decided against a full curfew, and a plan put to public consultation in 2026 would bar only the noisiest aircraft at night, phased in from 31 October 2027. Modern business jets generally have wide noise margins, and we check each aircraft type before a late departure.

The AviaVIP terminal at Mérignac: lounges, formalities and bags

Private passengers at Bordeaux never enter the airline halls. The business aviation terminal sits on the general aviation apron, and it is run by AviaVIP.

How we plan a Bordeaux flight

• The handler first. We confirm AviaVIP for the arrival and the departure, and any extension beyond 21:00.
• The French tax. We show the solidarity tax on every departure from France in the quote, so there are no surprises.
• Room for wine. We match the aircraft to the number of cases you plan to carry home.
• Pets and customs. We tell the handler in advance when a dog or cat is on board, so that customs can inspect its papers.
• The ground plan. Cars, château visits, lunches and boats on the bay are booked together with the flight.

Four things to know before booking Bordeaux

These points shape nearly every Bordeaux trip, and we deal with them before the aircraft is held.

From the airport to Bordeaux, the vineyards and the coast

Mérignac sits on the western edge of the city, handy for the Médoc to the north, the Graves to the south and the bay to the west. The times below are for a car outside the rush hour; since December 2025 tram line F has run from outside the airline halls to the Hôtel de Ville in about 35 minutes and on to Saint Jean station, every 10 minutes on weekdays.

For the Médoc on a busy summer day, a helicopter from the airport can reach château lawns in minutes where landings are allowed, and in July and August the ferry across the bay saves the long drive round to Cap Ferret.

What else you pay on a Bordeaux trip

Apart from the aircraft, the main extra on a Bordeaux trip is France's solidarity tax on air tickets, which since March 2025 weighs heavily on business aviation.

British Air Passenger Duty applies to the flight out of the UK. For a short haul Band A trip the rate is 32 GBP per passenger in a jet weighing 5.7 to just under 20 tonnes, or 142 GBP at 20 tonnes and above, until 31 March 2027; after that a single rate of 146.63 GBP per passenger covers every private jet from 5.7 tonnes upwards. Light jets under 5.7 tonnes pay nothing, nor do flights leaving Jersey or Guernsey, while Scottish departures come under their own Air Departure Tax from April 2027. On the way home the French tax applies instead, and for a party of six in a jet it adds 2,520 euros to the fare.

Arcachon, Bergerac, Biarritz and the other airports near Bordeaux

Mérignac takes almost every business jet bound for Bordeaux. The fields below cover the alternates our crews file and the trips that start or finish elsewhere in the south west.

Popular routes from the UK and Ireland to Bordeaux, and which way they run empty

You pay for the entire jet, never a seat, on a positioning flight that would otherwise go out empty. Times cover the flight only. Because the south west of France is an easy hop for even a very light jet, the routes use everything from a Citation M2 or CJ2 to a Challenger 350, and the choice of cabin moves the price more than the distance does. When your dates cannot move, compare with the charter fares listed near the start.

Sectors cluster on Thursdays and Fridays for weekends in the vineyards and on Mondays for the flights home, with a separate weekday flow tied to business and aerospace. In summer the bay adds Saturday changeovers.

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.

Border and customs rules for France

Arriving from Britain means entering the EU and the Schengen area, so French border police and customs apply the Union's rules. The points below matter most on a wine or holiday trip.

• Passport. A passport issued within the last ten years is needed, and it should remain valid for a further three months once your stay in Schengen is over.
• 90 days in 180. Time spent in France is added to time anywhere else in Schengen, with a ceiling of 90 days in any 180.
• EES. On the first Schengen entry the border police take four fingerprints and a facial image; for under 12s the photograph alone is recorded.
• Arriving in France. From outside the EU each adult may bring 16 litres of beer, 4 litres of still wine and either a litre of spirits or 2 litres of fortified or sparkling wine, plus 200 cigarettes and other goods worth up to 430 euros by air.
• Food. Meat and dairy products from the UK are banned at the EU border, so leave the cheese and the ham sandwiches behind.
• Money. Payment is in euros and card terminals are universal, even at small wine estates; carrying 10,000 euros or more in cash means a customs declaration.
• Taking wine home. Landing in Britain on a private flight, each adult may bring 270 GBP of goods free of duty plus 18 litres of wine, 42 of beer, 4 of spirits and 200 cigarettes. From 1 October 2026 sparkling wine counts towards the wine allowance and cider towards beer, and anything above the limits is declared and taxed.

Empty leg calendar for Bordeaux, month by month

Bordeaux follows the wine year: tastings in spring, holidays on the coast in summer and the harvest in autumn, with steady business traffic in between.

The best value comes in summer and around the harvest, when jets fly out of Bordeaux empty after dropping villa and château guests. If your dates are fixed, the quiet months of winter, before the spring tastings, leave the most aircraft free.

Three situations, three answers

Flying with a pet

The chip goes in first, the rabies vaccine follows, and the trip can start 21 days after that jab; the official vet then issues the animal health certificate within the ten days before you land in France. On arrival the animal and its papers are declared to French customs, which the handler arranges at the terminal, and no more than five pets may travel with one owner. France bans the import of Category 1 attack dogs, such as pit bull types, and places strict rules on Category 2 breeds.

For the flight home, Britain requires every dog to be treated against tapeworm by a vet between 24 and 120 hours before landing in the UK, as France is not on its exempt list, and only approved carriers and routes may be used. Whether the animal can ride in the cabin depends on the approved operator, and we check the details with you and your vet before the trip.

Flying privately to Bordeaux: common questions

Call +44 7857 574938 , message the same number on WhatsApp , or write to flight@empty-leg.co.uk . Let us know the purpose of the trip, the dates, how many people and bags, and whether you expect to fly back with cases of wine or an animal. We will send the sectors that fit with their full charter fares, and a plan for the terminal, the French tax and the drive to your château or villa.