Live empty legs to and from Scottsdale Airport and the Phoenix fields private jets also use. If you are pricing a private jet to Scottsdale for golf or the car auctions, 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.
Flying both ways? Book any leg and we’ll find or pair your return — plus transfers, catering, pets in the cabin and the full itinerary, handled end to end.
Legs into Scottsdale come mostly from the west, the Colorado mountains and Mexico.
An empty leg is a private jet flying without passengers, usually to reach its next booking or get home. Because the operator is flying anyway, the aircraft is offered for up to 75% less than chartering it in the usual way. The route and the timing are fixed; the price is the reward. Whether you call it private jet hire, rental or charter, the board above shows the live legs touching Scottsdale, Phoenix Sky Harbor and Deer Valley.
Scottsdale Airport (SDL, ICAO KSDL) is the main one, about 9 miles north of downtown Scottsdale, with a single 8,249 ft runway and three private terminals. Most visitors to Old Town and North Scottsdale land here. Sky Harbor, Deer Valley and Mesa Gateway are the alternatives.
A private terminal, known in the trade as an FBO (fixed-base operator), is the building where private passengers check in, meet their car and board, well away from the airline terminals. Our guide to private terminals (FBOs) covers what happens on the day. Scottsdale has three: Atlantic Aviation, Jet Aviation and Signature Aviation, and Atlantic’s terminal on North Airport Drive is open 24 hours.
Two rules are worth knowing before you book:
Sources: City of Scottsdale (Scottsdale runway and customs); ACUKWIK, Scottsdale; ACUKWIK, Sky Harbor; ACUKWIK, Deer Valley; ACUKWIK, Mesa Gateway; CBP Sky Harbor fact sheet (Phoenix customs hours). Distances are approximate, as published in airport directories. Drive times depend heavily on traffic on the Loop 101 and Loop 202, and your FBO can arrange a car to meet the aircraft.
Indicative charter rates by aircraft class, sourced from the global empty-leg marketplace. Empty legs are the bargain when your dates match.
Yes. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) staffs Scottsdale Airport from 9am to 7pm local time every day. Notice is due by 7pm on the business day before you land, and the user fee is paid online in advance; the current fees by aircraft size are on the City of Scottsdale customs page. Arizona doesn’t change its clocks, so those hours hold all year.
So a flight home from Cabo San Lucas can clear at Scottsdale itself, as long as it lands inside those hours. After 7pm the city can sometimes arrange an officer for an extra fee, decided case by case. Don’t count on Phoenix Sky Harbor as a late-night fallback: its general-aviation customs hours are 8:15am to 7:45pm, much the same window. Your operator books the landing rights; you bring your passport.
For most trips, Scottsdale. It is closer to the resorts and Old Town, and its FBOs are set up for exactly this traffic. A private jet to Phoenix makes sense for a downtown meeting, for a large-cabin jet over Scottsdale’s weight limit, or when an empty leg happens to be listed into one of the other fields.
On an empty leg you take whichever airport the operator has listed, so it is worth knowing all four. Mesa Gateway is the one our board does not preset, so ask your operator if a leg lands there.
Mostly west and north. Las Vegas is under an hour, Los Angeles a little over an hour, and the Colorado ski towns about an hour and a half. New York takes four and a half to five hours, usually in a super-midsize jet. Cabo San Lucas is about two hours, and on the way home you can clear customs at Scottsdale itself if you land between 9am and 7pm.
Great-circle distances calculated by Harbour & Hangar from airport coordinates. Flight times assume about 400 knots plus 20 minutes for taxi and climb, before wind. Your operator confirms the real time.
For the other end of the trip, see private jet hire Las Vegas and Los Angeles private jet charter. Winter visitors often pair Scottsdale with the mountains: Aspen is an hour and twenty minutes away, so check our empty legs to Aspen, and flying on to Denver for Vail or Beaver Creek is a short hop. Texas-bound? Private jet hire Dallas covers the airports at that end.
Most Scottsdale legs are repositioning flights, so the destinations change from day to day and the best way to read them is the board itself. Our guide to empty leg flights in the USA explains where legs tend to appear across the country, and our private jet hire destinations page lists everywhere else we cover.
An empty leg is priced for the whole aircraft, not per seat, and the price on the board is the price for everyone on board. 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 is priced by the hour, and the class of jet sets the rate. For the hourly rates by aircraft class, see private jet rental costs by class and our guide to private jet charter cost. For what legs typically sell for and how much you actually save, see empty leg flight cost.
Multiply an hourly rate by the flight time in the routes above and you have a starting figure: a light jet to Las Vegas or Los Angeles is roughly an hour of flying each way. A full charter also pays for the aircraft to reach you and, often, to fly home, which is exactly the leg an empty-leg buyer gets cheaply. Charter prices tend to climb in the busiest event weeks.
Winter, and two weeks in particular. The Barrett-Jackson collector car auction takes over WestWorld of Scottsdale in late January, and the WM Phoenix Open fills TPC Scottsdale in early to mid February. Both venues are a short drive from the runway, and dates move from year to year, so check the organisers’ calendars.
Event weeks fill the ramp. Parking at the FBOs is the limit, so book it with the FBO when you book the flight. We found no standing reservation scheme for the Phoenix Open on the city’s or the FBOs’ websites. The biggest events are different: the last time Phoenix hosted the Super Bowl, the FAA ran a reservation programme for arrivals and departures across eight valley airports, Scottsdale included, and flights without a reservation were told to expect significant delays. The FAA announces any such programme in advance, so check its notices and your FBO before an event week.
For empty-leg hunters, those crowded weeks are worth watching. A jet that can’t get parking may drop its passengers and leave empty, then come back empty to collect them. Set a route alert a few weeks ahead and you are watching for exactly those flights.
Beyond events, most legs are listed days rather than weeks ahead, and once someone enquires an empty leg is usually decided within a day or two, sometimes the same day. Our guide on how to find empty legs explains why a route alert beats checking the board each morning. If a leg changes, read what happens if an empty leg is cancelled or delayed before you plan around one.
The board for Scottsdale can be quiet on some days. A leg out appears when a jet drops its passengers at Scottsdale and, rather than wait on the ramp, flies off empty to its next job. That depends on each operator’s schedule, which is why the board can look different by the afternoon.
The full walk-through is in our guide on how to book an empty leg.
Scottsdale’s board is small, and some days there will be nothing on your route. Save a free route alert for Scottsdale and the place you want to go and we’ll email you when a matching leg is listed, or price a full charter on your dates below and request a confirmed quote.
How empty legs work, what private hire really costs, and flying Scottsdale for less.
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Scottsdale 
SJD → SCF