What Is a Repositioning Cost?

How it works

Repositioning cost is the money side of a physical fact: a charter aircraft is rarely already sitting at the airport where a client wants to depart from. It has to fly there empty first, and often has to fly away empty afterwards to its next job or its home base. That empty flying is described elsewhere in this glossary as a positioning flight, or, when crew are aboard but no paying passenger is, as a deadhead. Repositioning cost is what an operator charges, or absorbs, for that empty flying.

The charge is usually calculated the same way as the paid leg: block time, from brakes released to brakes set, multiplied by the aircraft's hourly rate, or a reduced ferry rate that some operators apply to empty legs. Which method applies is set by the operator's own charter agreement or, for a jet card, by the card's terms; there is no external rule fixing it. Some operators fold repositioning into a single all-in quote for the trip, so the client never sees it as a separate figure. Others itemise it, showing an occupied leg and a repositioning or deadhead leg as distinct lines with distinct hours.

Where the aircraft is based matters more to this cost than the distance the client actually flies. An operator based near the departure airport may have little or no repositioning to charge for; one based far away may need to fly in empty first and fly out empty afterwards, and both legs commonly land on the client's invoice.

Repositioning cost also arises between two charters that are not linked: after dropping a client, an aircraft may need to reposition to pick up its next booking, or to return to its home base for maintenance or crew scheduling. That leg is not caused by the client just served, and operators vary in how much of it, if any, they pass back into pricing for later trips.

In the United States, a repositioning charge added to the amount a client pays for a charter is generally treated as part of the taxable air transportation payment for the purposes of the federal excise tax, administered by the Internal Revenue Service under 26 U.S.C. Section 4261; this reflects the position as of September 2026 and depends on how the operator structures and discloses the charge. In the UK, Air Passenger Duty is levied by HM Revenue & Customs on departing passengers rather than on aircraft movements, so it does not attach to an empty repositioning leg in the same way, though this entry does not attempt to state the EU position in detail.

Cost impact

Repositioning cost moves the total price of a charter, and it does so unevenly: a one-way trip from an airport near the aircraft's base can cost close to nothing extra, while the identical route flown by an aircraft based far away can carry a large added charge. The contract, not a fixed rule, decides whether the client is billed for none, one, or both of the empty legs, and at what rate.

Take an illustrative example. Suppose an aircraft is based 400 nautical miles from a client's departure airport, adding an illustrative 1.2 hours of block time each way. At an illustrative hourly rate of $6,500, one repositioning leg of 1.2 hours adds an illustrative $7,800 to the bill; if the operator also bills the return-to-base leg, the illustrative total repositioning charge rises to $15,600. On an illustrative one-way charter quoted at $28,000 for the occupied leg alone, that additional $15,600 would take the illustrative all-in price to $43,600, an increase of roughly 56% over the occupied-leg price alone.

Because the practice varies by operator and by contract clause, the same route quoted by two operators based at different distances from the departure airport can differ by tens of thousands of dollars purely on repositioning, before any difference in aircraft or service is considered.

Example

Suppose, for illustration, a client in Geneva charters a light jet for a one-way flight to London, and the only available aircraft on the requested date is based in Nice rather than Geneva.

• The occupied leg, Geneva to London, is quoted at an illustrative $18,000.
• The aircraft must first fly empty from Nice to Geneva, an illustrative repositioning leg of 1.1 hours at an illustrative rate of $6,000 per hour, adding an illustrative $6,600.
• The operator's contract also bills the return leg, London back to the aircraft's Nice base, an illustrative 1.6 hours at the same illustrative rate, adding a further illustrative $9,600.

Adding the two illustrative repositioning charges, $6,600 and $9,600, to the illustrative $18,000 occupied-leg quote brings the illustrative total to $34,200, meaning the client pays an illustrative $16,200 above the price of the flight actually flown with a passenger aboard.