For most European operators, the empty leg sits at the bottom of the priority list. It pays nothing on the way to or from the actual contract. By the time you find a broker willing to surface it, the margin has been split twice — and the leg is still half-sold or flying empty. That's the problem Ledig was built to fix.
How Ledig handles distribution
You list the leg from your dispatch platform or directly through the Ledig operator console — origin, destination, aircraft, slot, floor price. The leg goes live to a curated list of travellers who've opted in for that route, that aircraft type, that price band. They book seats at your price. The operator-of-record stays you.
- You set the price. Ledig never marks up a seat. The traveller sees what you set. We charge the traveller a transparent platform fee on top — never out of your revenue.
- You stay the operator-of-record. Crew, contract, AOC, insurance: all yours. Ledig is a distribution layer, not a re-seller.
- You decide the cancellation policy. Within EU consumer protection rules, you choose your own forfeit / rebook terms. Ledig applies them consistently to every booking.
- Ledig handles payments and KYC. Stripe Connect with SEPA + cards. Travellers pay Ledig at booking, you receive the cleared funds within 24 hours of departure.
Why direct-to-consumer beats broker-mediated for empty legs
The economics of empty legs are unforgiving. The unit cost of the positioning hour is fixed — it flies whether or not you sell a seat. Anything you recover is upside. But every layer between your seat and the buyer takes a percentage of upside that's already razor-thin.
A typical broker chain takes 8–15% on top of any agency or platform margin already in play. For an empty leg priced at €4,500 net, that often means €600–€700 evaporates before the booking lands in your crew's briefing. On Ledig, the booking value lands with you minus only payment processing. The difference scales with every seat you sell.
Built for the realities of EU private aviation
We don't pretend the European market is the US. Different AOC rules, different airport access, different consumer protection law. Ledig is a Danish-incorporated platform compliant with EU Regulation 1008/2008, GDPR-native, and VAT-aware (positioning flights are out-of-scope; passenger flights track the operator's own VAT treatment).
See also: why no-broker matters, how Ledig compares to Avinode, or run a free utilization projection.