Empty leg flights to and from Cannes

Cannes has an airport that most visitors never see: Cannes Mandelieu, six kilometres west of the city centre, where there are no airline flights at all and every movement is business aviation, private flying or a helicopter. It takes jets of up to 35 tonnes, closes every evening and puts you on the seafront a quarter of an hour after the engines stop. For anything larger, or later in the evening, Nice is forty minutes up the coast.

That combination shapes the empty legs. The aircraft that use Cannes are mostly turboprops, light jets and midsize jets, the kind that move between the Riviera and the business centres of northern Europe and reposition constantly, and the town's calendar of festivals and trade fairs sends them in and out in waves.

Empty legs to and from Cannes right now

The board below lists the sectors our operator network has released into or out of Cannes Mandelieu. On days when Cannes itself has little to show, sectors into Nice, Saint-Tropez and Toulon are listed underneath, since each of them is a drive or a helicopter hop from the Croisette.

Also moving across the rest of the Riviera

Sectors on this list do not touch Cannes itself. They are shown because the fields are close enough that the drive rarely costs you more than waiting for the right sector does. Tell us which one interests you and we will confirm it is still open.

Where Cannes sectors come from

Three patterns keep aircraft moving through Cannes Mandelieu, and each one produces repositioning flights in its own way.

Cannes Mandelieu Airport in detail

The figures that decide whether a particular aircraft, crew and schedule will work at Cannes, gathered in one place.

The terminal and Sky Valet

Cannes Mandelieu has a single terminal, and the FBO in it is Sky Valet, the business aviation brand of Aéroports de la Côte d'Azur, with a network that now covers more than forty airports in six countries. At Cannes it looks after private passengers from the aircraft on the apron to the car at the door. The building is small and unhurried, and it has something rare at a private terminal: a proper restaurant.

The terminal from a passenger's side

Everything at Cannes is close together: the car park, the lounge, the restaurant and the apron are within a few steps of each other, and the boats at the Port du Béal are five minutes away.

Arrive fifteen minutes before a departure from Cannes, and watch the clock on the way in rather than on the way out. The airport closes at its set evening hour without exception, so an aircraft delayed leaving London can find Cannes shut when it gets there and land at Nice instead.

Four rules that shape a Cannes trip

Cannes is quicker and calmer than Nice, and it pays for that with a set of limits that every booking has to respect.

For an empty leg passenger these limits have an upside. Fewer aircraft and fewer crews can accept a Cannes booking, so an operator with a suitable jet already on the apron has every reason to fill its return flight, and the sectors it releases often stay on sale for a day or two.

What the ground costs, and the French tax

Cannes is a small airport with modest ground charges, but a flight home still carries the French passenger tax, and the aircraft type decides how much of it you pay.

The French tax applies to every passenger on a charter flight of nineteen seats or fewer leaving a French airport, and Cannes is no exception. On a flight to Britain it costs 420 euros per passenger in a jet and 210 euros in a turboprop, so six passengers flying home from Cannes in a PC-12 pay 1,260 euros between them and the same six in a Phenom 300 pay 2,520. An empty leg with passengers aboard is charged exactly like any other flight, while a flight into Cannes from Britain pays nothing on the French side.

What an empty leg saves at Cannes is the positioning. A charter from Cannes to Britain often includes the cost of bringing a suitable aircraft down first, and a stay of several days may include taking it away and back again. A repositioning sector carries none of that, because the operator is flying it anyway.

Nice, Saint-Tropez and the other fields nearby

When Cannes does not fit the aircraft, the hour or the weather, one of these usually does, and some of them are the better choice in their own right.

From the aircraft to the Croisette

Cannes Mandelieu sits on the right side of town for most of what brings people here. Times below are by road outside the rush, with the helicopter where it makes sense.

The quickest route to a boat is the one that never touches a road. Sea Valet takes you from the aircraft to the Port du Béal in five minutes, and from there a tender reaches a yacht anchored off the Croisette or the Îles de Lérins in a few more.

Popular routes between the UK and Cannes, and which way they run empty

The aircraft that fit Cannes are the light and midsize jets that fly most British routes to the south of France, so the list covers most UK airports with business jets on them. Figures are guides for the whole aircraft flying a repositioning sector, before passenger taxes; the price table near the top shows what the same aircraft costs as a charter.

The festival weeks are where these routes come alive. A London sector into Cannes the day before the Film Festival opens is full at charter price, and the same aircraft flying home empty the next morning is exactly the kind of sector worth registering for.

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 Cannes from the UK

Flights from Britain into Cannes cross the external border of the Schengen area, and the paperwork follows from that.

• Passport validity. On arrival a British passport has to be less than ten years old and valid for three months beyond your planned departure date. The limit on a visit is 90 days in any 180 day period.
• The Entry/Exit System. In full use across the Schengen area since April 2026. Your face and fingerprints are recorded at the first crossing, passports are no longer stamped, and later crossings are checked against the record.
• ETIAS. Not in operation yet. Once it starts, the authorisation will cost 20 euros and remain valid for three years, and a transition period and a grace period of six months each are planned before refusals begin.
• Customs on request. Because customs and the border police are called out for each arrival at Cannes, passenger names and passport details go to the handler in good time, and a late change to the passenger list is harder to absorb here than at a bigger airport.
• Allowances. Arriving from outside the EU, each adult may bring 200 cigarettes, 1 litre of spirits, 4 litres of still wine and 16 litres of beer without duty, and cash of 10,000 euros or more has to be declared.
• The return. Back in Britain the personal allowance is 42 litres of beer, 18 litres of still wine and 4 litres of spirits per adult. Visitors who are not British or Irish citizens generally need a UK electronic travel authorisation or a visa, and the operator reports the flight to UK border control before it leaves.
• Tax on each leg. Air Passenger Duty is charged on the flight from Britain and the French solidarity tax on the flight from Cannes, and both appear as separate lines in our quotes.

Empty leg calendar for Cannes, month by month

Cannes lives by its events. The weeks when the Palais is full are the ones with the fewest cheap seats, and the days just after them are often the best of the year for a sector home.

The best months at Cannes are April, September and October, and the best days are the ones immediately after a big event closes. The weeks to book early rather than wait are the Film Festival in May and the height of the summer, when a charter is the reliable option and an empty leg is a bonus.

Three situations, three answers

Flying to Cannes with a dog or a cat

Heading south, a dog or cat needs a microchip, a rabies vaccination at least 21 days old and an animal health certificate issued by an official vet no more than ten days before the flight, because since 22 April 2026 France no longer accepts an EU pet passport held by someone living in Britain. France also refuses entry to category 1 dogs, the attack types such as pit bulls, mastiffs and tosas that have no recognised pedigree.

Coming home is the part to plan first. The operator of the aircraft must be approved to carry pets into Great Britain on that particular route, and a dog needs a tapeworm treatment from a vet one to five days before it lands, so the visit to a vet in Cannes goes into the diary with the flight. Mention the animal at the start, and we will only put forward sectors whose operator can accept it.

Private flights to Cannes: common questions

Call +44 7857 574938, message the same number on WhatsApp, or write to flight@empty-leg.co.uk. Send us the event or the dates, say how much give there is in them, and we will track the Cannes sectors in both directions.