Live empty legs to and from Van Nuys, Burbank, Santa Monica and the other airports around the Los Angeles basin. Every price is for the whole aircraft. Search your dates, or request a confirmed quote.
Live prices, sourced from the global empty-leg marketplace. Empty legs reprice and vanish by the minute — get a live quote before yours reposts.
Set an alert and we’ll email you the moment one appears. Around 95% of legs don’t match a first search — they come and go daily, so watching a route is how most people actually fly one.
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Legs into Los Angeles mostly arrive from Nevada, Arizona, Mexico and New York.
An empty leg is a private jet flight the operator has to make with no passengers on board, usually to get back to base or to reach its next booking. Because the jet is flying anyway, the trip can cost up to 75% less than chartering the same aircraft. The catch is that the route and the timing are already fixed. If you want a private jet in Los Angeles without paying for the aircraft to fly out to you, the board above is the place to start.
Mostly it means Van Nuys (VNY), in the San Fernando Valley, which handles more private flying than anywhere else in the region. Hollywood Burbank (BUR) is the second choice for the Valley and Hollywood. Santa Monica (SMO) is closest to the Westside but takes only smaller jets and is due to close. LAX, Long Beach, Hawthorne and Camarillo fill the gaps.
A private terminal, or FBO (fixed-base operator), is the building on the private side of an airport where you check in, wait and walk out to the aircraft. Every airport in the table has at least one, so you never use the airline terminal.
Runway lengths and night rules come from the airport operators and FltPlan airport listings. Rules change, so ask your operator to check the current position for your flight.
Sources: LAWA, Van Nuys; FltPlan, VNY; FltPlan, BUR; FltPlan, SMO; FltPlan, LAX; FltPlan, LGB; FltPlan, HHR; FltPlan, CMA.
Indicative charter rates by aircraft class, sourced from the global empty-leg marketplace. Empty legs are the bargain when your dates match.
Los Angeles World Airports, which runs it, calls Van Nuys one of the world’s busiest general aviation airports, with more than 217,000 take-offs and landings a year. The main runway is 8,000 ft, long enough for a Gulfstream on a coast-to-coast trip. Four major FBOs operate here: Castle & Cooke Aviation, Clay Lacy Aviation, Jet Aviation and Signature.
Van Nuys has a night curfew on departures. Under the airport’s noise regulations (LAWA), no aircraft louder than 74 dBA on take-off may depart between 11pm and 7am, and older jets that are not Stage 3 certified are also held from 10pm. Arrivals are not covered by the departure curfew. Customs runs on set hours that change through the week, and requests are only processed in the 24 hours before arrival, so it is booked the day before you land.
Burbank is a busy airline airport with two FBOs, Atlantic Aviation and Million Air, and a longest runway of 6,886 ft. Its noise rules set a curfew from 10pm to 7am: aircraft that do not meet the airport’s noise limits cannot land or take off in those hours, and Stage 2 jets that have not been certified Stage 3 cannot use the airport at all. Modern business jets are generally Stage 3, but the operator still checks each aircraft against the airport’s noise rules.
Santa Monica is still open, but it is a much smaller airport than it was. The city shortened the runway to 3,500 ft under its agreement with the FAA, which rules out most midsize and larger jets, and there is a 95 dBA noise limit on every flight. No take-offs between 11pm and 7am on weekdays, or before 8am at weekends. There is one FBO, Atlantic Aviation, and no customs.
The bigger point is the date. Under that federal agreement, the city plans to close the airport permanently at midnight on 31 December (City of Santa Monica). Until then, treat it as a light-jet option for the Westside, and check the NOTAMs (notices to pilots) before you plan around it.
LAX has two FBOs, Signature and Atlantic, on West Imperial Highway, with customs on site at Signature. It suits international arrivals and heavy jets. Long Beach has a 10,000 ft runway, Signature and Ross Aviation FBOs, and strict night noise limits: only the main runway stays open from 10pm to 7am. Hawthorne is a short 4,884 ft strip close to Inglewood, mostly busy on big game weekends. Camarillo, out in Ventura County, has a 6,013 ft runway and four FBOs, and is a quiet choice for the western end of Malibu.
Las Vegas is the shortest of the popular routes: 50 to 70 minutes in a light jet. Cabo San Lucas is around two to two and a half hours. New York is the long one, around five and a half to six and a half hours westbound into Van Nuys depending on the aircraft, and quicker flying east with the jet stream.
Flight times from charter-broker route guides; they vary with wind and aircraft.
Los Angeles legs run along the same lines. Jets fly out full to Las Vegas, Scottsdale and the desert on Friday and come back empty; after a big night out in Las Vegas, the pattern reverses. If Vegas is your trip, see private jet hire Las Vegas for the airports at that end, and Scottsdale empty legs for Arizona.
The coast-to-coast traffic is the other big source: our page on private jets to New York covers Teterboro and the other New York fields, and in winter Aspen private jet hire picks up the ski crowd heading inland. For where legs tend to appear across the country, see empty leg flights in the USA.
For Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, the private jet field is Thermal (TRM), about 20 miles south-east of Palm Springs, with an 8,500 ft runway and three FBOs. That is a long drive from Los Angeles, so it often makes more sense to fly.
With an empty leg, it is whichever airport the operator has listed. Where you do have a choice, between two legs or on a full charter, work back from where you are staying and what time you land.
Santa Monica is nearer than Van Nuys to Beverly Hills on the map, but it only suits light jets. Van Nuys takes any business jet.
Empty legs are priced for the whole aircraft, not per seat. Share it with the people you are flying with and the cost per person falls with every seat you fill. The listed price is set by the operator and moves as the departure date gets closer, and every price on the board follows the currency picker, so you can compare in dollars, pounds or euros.
A full charter costs more because you pay for the aircraft to reach you as well as for your flight. That is the gap an empty leg closes, and why it can cost up to 75% less. On a long route such as New York to Van Nuys the saving is large; shorter hops cost far less in the first place. For hourly rates by aircraft class, see what private jet rental costs and our guide to private jet charter cost. For what legs typically sell for, see empty leg flight cost.
If there is no leg on your dates, the “Didn’t find your leg?” tool below prices a full charter on your route in seconds, so you can compare the two.
Around the big weekends. When a major event fills the basin, parking at Van Nuys, Hawthorne and Long Beach sells out, so jets drop their passengers and leave empty for Palm Springs, Phoenix or Las Vegas, then come back empty to collect them. Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium on 14 February is the next big one, and our event page has the airport and slot detail.
The rest of the year, Los Angeles legs follow the weekly rhythm of the Las Vegas and desert runs and the cross-country repositioning to New York and back.
Los Angeles is a crowded charter market, and plenty of Van Nuys operators sell their own aircraft directly. The board shows the legs those fleets have to fly empty. Once someone enquires, an empty leg is usually decided within a day or two, sometimes the same day, so if a route matters to you, set an alert rather than waiting for the right day to check. Our guide on how to find empty legs explains why a route alert beats checking the board each morning.
Legs can move or be cancelled at short notice. It is worth reading what happens if an empty leg is cancelled or delayed before you plan around one.
The full walk-through is in how to book an empty leg. Empty legs fly the same aircraft, crew and operator certificate as a full-price charter; for the detail, see are empty legs safe?
Some days there is nothing on your route. Save a free route alert for Los Angeles and where you want to go and we’ll email you when a matching leg is listed, or price a full charter on your dates below. For other cities on the board, browse our private jet hire destinations.
How empty legs work, what private hire really costs, and flying Los Angeles for less.
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Los Angeles 
SJD → VNY