Positioning Costs: Why Where the Aircraft Sleeps Changes Your Price

Ask for a quote from Udaipur to Delhi, then for the same trip on another day, and the price can move noticeably. Often the aircraft and the flight are identical. What changed is where the nearest suitable aircraft happened to be. That is positioning, and understanding it is the easiest way to pay less for charter.

What positioning is

Charter aircraft have home bases, often in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru or Hyderabad. When your trip starts elsewhere, the aircraft must fly there empty first. When your trip ends away from base, it usually flies home empty afterwards. Those empty sectors burn the same fuel and crew time as a flight with passengers, so they are part of the cost.

An example

Say you want to fly Udaipur to Delhi, a distance of about 543 km (roughly 1 h 5 min by jet). If the available jet is based in Delhi, the aircraft flies Delhi to Udaipur empty, then brings you back to Delhi, where it is home. You pay for two sectors. If the only available jet is in Mumbai, it may have to fly Mumbai to Udaipur empty, bring you to Delhi, then fly Delhi to Mumbai empty: three sectors for one passenger flight.

How to reduce positioning costs

1. Be flexible on dates when you can. A day earlier or later may bring a better-placed aircraft.
2. Consider a return trip. If you are coming back within a day or two, keeping the aircraft with you can cost less than two one-way trips, each with its own empty legs.
3. Look at empty legs. When an aircraft has to reposition anyway, operators often sell that flight at a discount. See the current list on our empty legs page, or ask us to alert you.
4. Choose the right aircraft for the distance. For shorter sectors a turboprop or light jet based nearby often beats a larger jet that has to travel further to reach you. Our guide to choosing an aircraft helps.

Why aircraft are based where they are

Most business aircraft in India are based where demand, maintenance facilities and parking are concentrated: the large metros. That is great for trips that start or end in a metro, and less convenient for trips between two smaller cities. A flight from Jaipur to Udaipur, for example, will almost always involve positioning from somewhere else.

Multi-day trips

For a trip of several days, you can either keep the aircraft and crew with you, paying for crew accommodation and parking, or let the aircraft fly home and come back for you, paying for positioning twice. Which is cheaper depends on the distance to base and how many days you are away. For two or three days away, keeping the aircraft is often competitive, and it gives you flexibility to change plans.

Positioning on multi-city itineraries

On a well-planned multi-city trip, the aircraft is always carrying you and rarely flies empty, which makes these itineraries efficient. Our multi-city planning guide shows how to sequence cities to reduce empty flying.

Is positioning ever free?

Occasionally an aircraft has to be somewhere near your departure point anyway, for maintenance or another customer's trip, and positioning cost drops sharply. You cannot plan on it, but if your dates are flexible, it pays to ask. Setting an empty leg alert is the easiest way to hear about these flights.

How BookAir handles it

When you request a quote, we check the aircraft that suit your route and passenger count, including where they are based. The quotation you receive shows the flying involved, so you can see when positioning is part of the price. If a better-placed option appears, a flight advisor will tell you.

Request a quote and mention if your dates are flexible; it often makes the biggest difference.