Empty leg flights to and from Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the busiest airport in Scotland and well equipped for private flights, with a dedicated business aviation centre on the airfield. It sits seven miles west of the city centre at Ingliston, straight off the M8 and M9, and a car reaches the New Town in about twenty minutes.

For repositioning sectors the city has one enormous advantage and one seasonal problem. The advantage is the London corridor, one of the busiest domestic private routes in Britain, which produces empty legs in both directions almost every week. The problem is August, when the festivals fill slots and stands, and the usual advice about waiting for a bargain stops working entirely.

Empty legs from Edinburgh right now

The board below shows what our operator network has released on Scottish routes. Because the London corridor runs so hard in both directions, Edinburgh produces sectors more steadily than most cities of its size.

Where Edinburgh sectors come from

Three things generate repositioning flights here, and only one of them is the same as in the south.

Edinburgh Airport in detail

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

The private terminal and the handling

Private traffic at Edinburgh runs through a dedicated business aviation centre, and every flight has to be booked through a licensed handler before it arrives.

What the terminal is actually like

The business aviation centre sits apart from the main passenger building. You will not see a check in desk, a departure board or a security queue, and the walk to the aircraft is measured in metres.

Fifteen to twenty minutes before a domestic departure is enough and twenty to thirty before an international one. On an empty leg the handler comes with the sector rather than being chosen, and which one you are using is confirmed in the flight brief along with the address and the crew contact.

What the ground costs

Edinburgh is reasonable by UK standards. The costs that catch people out here are seasonal and weather related rather than structural.

That last point carries more weight in Scotland than almost anywhere else in Britain. Almost no business jets are based here, so a charter out of Edinburgh usually includes the cost of flying an aircraft up from England or Europe first, and that single sector can add several thousand pounds. An empty leg removes it entirely, because the aircraft is already standing on the apron and has to leave regardless.

The other fields in central Scotland

Edinburgh does most of the work, but when the slots are gone in August or a sector lands elsewhere, these are the alternatives worth accepting.

Getting into the city and out to the golf

Edinburgh Airport is unusually close to its own city and unusually far from the courses most of its passengers are heading for. These are typical off peak times by road.

The helicopter is worth more here than in most British cities, because the distances that matter are to places without an airport rather than into a congested centre. Twenty five minutes to St Andrews against an hour and a half on the road changes a golf day completely, and it is arranged alongside the flight rather than separately.

Popular destinations from Edinburgh, and which way they run empty

Some corridors throw off sectors constantly and others almost never. These are the first group, and each price is where a whole aircraft typically starts on a repositioning flight.

One Scottish peculiarity worth knowing. New York is closer from Edinburgh than from London, so a transatlantic sector from here is shorter and occasionally available when nothing comparable exists in the south. It does not come up often, which is exactly why it is worth registering rather than watching 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 Edinburgh from abroad

Scotland is part of the United Kingdom for every immigration and customs purpose, so the formalities are the same as at any British airport and most of them are settled before you travel.

• Passenger details go in with the booking. Every person on board is named, with date of birth, nationality and passport number. A General Aviation Report is filed by the operator for any international movement to or from the United Kingdom, and it has to be in well before departure rather than on the day.
• 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.
• Border control is arranged per flight. Depending on the handler, you will either be cleared at the private facility or walked through the arrivals hall in the main terminal. Either way it is a few minutes rather than a queue, and we tell you which applies before you fly.
• Air Passenger Duty until 31 March 2027. On 1 April 2027 the Scottish Air Departure Tax takes its place, charged at the UK rates for its first year, with a higher supplement for private jets expected from April 2028. It is always shown as its own line in any quote we send, rather than folded into the total.

Empty leg calendar for Edinburgh, month by month

Edinburgh runs on a calendar of its own. Rugby, golf, the August festivals and Hogmanay move aircraft here in ways that have nothing to do with the London business year, and they create both the hardest weeks and the best ones.

September, March, April, May and October are the months to aim for. The Scottish rule is the mirror of the national one: the weeks that fill the city are the weeks that empty the market, and the days immediately after a festival or a Murrayfield weekend are the best of the month, because every aircraft that came in has to leave again.

Three situations, three answers

Travelling with a dog or a cat

Edinburgh is a good airport for it. It handles animal movements and is used as a point of entry, so a dog coming back from Europe can often land here rather than routing through the south and continuing by road.

The conditions are the same as everywhere else and they are checked rather than assumed: the operator has to hold the relevant approval and the route has to be an approved one, for every booking. Departing, the requirements are those of your destination instead. Tell us about the animal in the first message and we will confirm what applies to your particular routing before you commit to anything.

Questions about flying private from Edinburgh

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 Scottish corridors for you.