Thousands of business jets are flying on empty with full tanks of fuel.
Empty seats, that is. There's no doubt a lot of business is being lost.
A substantial amount of private charter flights are booked one way. Other times, an aircraft will fly empty to pick up passengers. In 2009, there were an estimated 3.4 million flights throughout the United States, according to the National Business Aviation Association, so the potential for an empty cabin-known as empty legs-is tremendous.
Aircraft owners hate empty legs. They make flying more expensive, waste fuel and take away from recovering the cost of owning an aircraft, notes Joshua Hebert, founder of Magellan Jets, a Boston-based broker of charter and empty-leg flights.
With rising fuel prices empty legs can make some trips profitless and impractical. "In the past, an airplane would fly passengers to their destination and return," he said. "Now the crew may wait five to seven days before they come back to sell the empty leg."
While that may seem like a solution, paying the flight crew to go to dinner and lounge at the hotel can quickly burn through a company's budget.
Hebert said empty legs are so expensive owners and operators will do whatever it takes to fill the cabin. That could mean modifying the return trip to a nearby destination or offer potential travelers deep discounts, sometimes up to 50 percent off the usual fixed fare.
Empty or not, the aircraft must eventually return to it base to fly other trips. So there's lot of incentive to negotiate.
Understanding this reality of private flying will never go away, Magellan Jets launched a portal that can search for empty legs. The software, exclusive to Magellan Jets, taps the vast data base of empty legs generated by hundreds of flight departments, charter companies and aircraft owners and displays it on the company's Web site, said Hebert.
Anyone can access the data by visiting www.magellanjets.com. Scroll to the bottom, click View Empty Legs and you'll be overwhelmed by the selection. Major destinations-Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Boca Raton and Nantucket-featuring every aircraft from Beech Barons to Gulfstreams allow customers a wide choice of options.
Trips are show by location and date, both domestically and overseas. When a visitor spots the right empty leg, a simple request form is completed on line and submitted. A Magellan flight specialist then contacts the customer with details and pricing.
"Everybody wins," said Hebert. "The traveler saves a bundle. The aircraft operator avoids a loss and Magellan Jets makes a sale."