Empty leg flights to and from Liverpool

Liverpool John Lennon has one feature that sets it apart from Manchester, and it is worth stating before anything else: general aviation here does not need runway slot coordination. The field runs twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, with full fire cover throughout, and the private apron sits a short taxi from the runway threshold.

For repositioning sectors that is close to ideal. An operator deciding at lunchtime to move an aircraft can do it here without negotiating a slot, at any hour, and the short hops across the Irish Sea are among the least expensive sectors we place. The Isle of Man is half an hour gate to gate and starts around 1,800 GBP for the whole aircraft.

Empty legs from Liverpool right now

The board below shows what our operator network has released on north west routes. Liverpool is a smaller market than Manchester an hour up the motorway, and it is a far easier one to get into at short notice.

Where Liverpool sectors come from

Three things move private aircraft in and out of Merseyside, and the first of them matters to anyone flying at short notice, wherever they happen to live.

Liverpool John Lennon Airport in detail

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

The two private terminals

Liverpool has a genuine choice of private facility, which not every regional airport can offer. One is a polished brand operation, the other an independent with a hangar behind it, and each is better at something the other is not.

What the terminal is actually like

Whichever of the two you use, the visit is short and the main passenger building never comes into it.

Fifteen minutes before a domestic sector and thirty before an international one is ample. Which of the two buildings you use is settled by the operator on an empty leg, and it arrives in the flight brief along with the address and the crew contact.

What the ground costs

Liverpool is among the least expensive airports in Britain to use privately, and the reasons are structural rather than promotional.

Put together, those four lines are why an operator with a choice will often pick Liverpool over its larger neighbour for a repositioning flight. The aircraft gets in and out faster, nobody has to wait for a window, and the ground bill is smaller. That is also why a sector that appears here is worth taking seriously even if you were thinking of Manchester.

The other fields in the north west

Liverpool covers most of what Merseyside needs. These are the fields worth knowing when a sector lands elsewhere, when an aircraft is too big for the general aviation apron, or when the island itself is the destination.

Getting into the city and across the region

The airport sits on the Mersey south east of the city, which suits south Liverpool, the Wirral and Cheshire better than it suits the north of the county. These are typical off peak times by road.

There is no railway station at the airport, so the car is the answer at this end of the journey. Helicopter transfers are arranged alongside the flight from the same airfield, which in this part of the country means a racecourse, a golf club or a house in north Wales rather than a city centre.

Popular destinations from Liverpool, and which way they run empty

A handful of routes generate sectors week after week while most produce nothing at all. These are the first kind, and the top of the list is where the value sits: three short hops across the Irish Sea, each starting at 1,800 GBP for the whole aircraft.

There is no New York and no Dubai in that table. Long range jets can use the runway, but the deep pool of long haul aircraft and crews sits at Manchester, so a genuine long haul trip usually starts there instead. It is thirty five miles away and it is the honest answer rather than the local one.

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 Liverpool from abroad

The formalities are the same as at any British airport and most of them are settled before you travel rather than on the day.

• 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.
• Ireland is a special case. Flights to and from the Republic sit inside the Common Travel Area, which removes a layer of formality and is one reason the Dublin corridor is so heavily used from here.
• Air Passenger Duty on departures. Charged per passenger leaving a UK airport and shown as its own line in any quote we send, rather than folded into the total.

Empty leg calendar for Liverpool, month by month

Merseyside runs on football, racing and the Irish Sea, and its year has one immovable peak in April. The rest of the calendar is unusually even, because the airport never closes and nothing has to be squeezed into an operating window.

May, September, March and October are the months to aim for. The week to plan around is the Grand National in April, and the useful inversion applies: the days immediately after it are among the best of the year, because every aircraft that flew somebody in has to leave again.

Three situations, three answers

Travelling with a dog or a cat

Liverpool is one of the better airports in Britain for this. It operates under the pet travel scheme as an approved point of entry, and one of the private terminals here is the authorised checker, which means the paperwork is handled by people who do it regularly rather than occasionally.

The conditions are still checked rather than assumed: the operator flying you needs approval for animals on that particular route, and the paperwork goes in ahead of the flight rather than on the day. Two of the most common routes from here, Ireland and the Isle of Man, do not need an approved route at all, which makes them about as simple as pet sectors get. Mention the animal in your first message and the routing gets built around it.

Questions about flying private from Liverpool

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 west corridors for you.