Paris to London Empty Leg Flights (LBG to LCY)

Paris Le Bourget handles more business-aviation movements than any other airport in continental Europe. On a typical weekday, dozens of light and midsize jets arrive from London carrying executives, then sit idle or reposition. The return leg, whether to London City, Farnborough, or Biggin Hill, is frequently empty. Seasonal spikes make this even more pronounced: Paris Fashion Week in January and September floods Le Bourget with repositioning traffic, and the Cannes film and advertising calendar adds further churn in May. Any operator based in the UK who flew a client to Paris for a two-day meeting needs that aircraft back, and that return sector is your opportunity.

The distance from Le Bourget to London City is around 341 km, which puts it firmly in light-jet territory. The Phenom 300 is the workhorse here: fast enough to cover the sector in just over an hour, efficient to operate, and common among UK and French operators alike. The Citation XLS+ appears regularly too, offering a slightly wider cabin for four to six passengers. Older Hawker 800XPs still operate this corridor for operators running legacy fleets. On busier weeks, when a Challenger 350 has dropped a client at Le Bourget and needs to return to its UK base, you occasionally see a super-midsize repositioning, which can push the empty-leg price to €8,000 to €10,000 but gives you a genuinely spacious transatlantic-capable cabin for a one-hour hop.

London City is the right answer for most business travellers on this corridor. The airport sits inside the city, DLR connects it to Canary Wharf in eight minutes and Bank in twelve, and the terminal is small enough that you clear UK Border Force and collect bags in under fifteen minutes. Compare that with Heathrow, where the same process can take an hour. The steep approach into LCY does restrict the heaviest aircraft, which is why you rarely see large-cabin jets listed for this specific pairing, but every light and midsize jet on the market handles it without issue. If your meeting is in the West End or the City of London, no commercial or private option gets you closer to the door.

Operators list their Le Bourget to London City repositioning flights directly on Ledig Air, without a broker sitting in between taking a margin. Founding operators on the platform keep 100% of revenue on their first ten bookings, which means they can price empty legs more aggressively than they might through a traditional broker channel. As a traveller, you see the actual operator, their AOC details, and the specific aircraft registration before you book. The booking process is direct: you agree the sector, confirm passenger count and any specific requirements, and pay the operator. There is no opaque pricing layer, and the operator has every incentive to fill the cabin rather than fly empty.

Flexibility on departure time is the single biggest factor in securing a good empty-leg price on this corridor. Operators repositioning from Le Bourget after a morning drop-off typically want to depart between 11:00 and 14:00 local time. If you can work around that window, your chances of finding a listed sector improve considerably. It is also worth setting up alerts for both the LBG to LCY direction and the reverse, since many operators base aircraft in London and fly empty to Paris to pick up clients, meaning the outbound sector can also appear. Lead times vary: some empty legs are listed a week out, others appear 24 to 48 hours before departure when a booking cancels or a client's schedule shifts.