What Is The Oldest Passenger Jet Still In Service?
When booking a flight, we tend to look at departure times, seat configurations, and food and entertainment options onboard. It rarely occurs to us to check the plane's birthday, but there are more than a few passenger jets entering upwards of their third and fourth decades of service, not that they print that kind of information on the ticket. It's usually more obvious when you're inside the cabin. So if you happen to be in Quebec aboard a Nolinor Aviation 737 with the serial number 20836, that may be, according to database Airfleets.net, the world's oldest active passenger plane. It's 49.9 years old. You always round down the older you get.
The Boeing 737-2K2C first took flight in September 1974 as part of Transavia Airlines, a low-cost Dutch airline. As the Telegraph describes, for the next few decades it hopped around like a journeyman working for various now defunct carriers, including Australian Airlines, Air Florida, and MarkAir, which was based in Alaska. The next few years were spent as a cargo plane, and then it went back to carrying people in Peru, Italy, and Hungary. But after traveling the world as a younger plane, it finally settled down in the small Montreal suburb of Mirabel, where it's been working for the Canadian charter airline Nolinor Aviation since 2014.
The prospect of boarding an old plane
Founded in 1992, Nolinor Aviation promotes itself as an airline that can be configured for both passengers and cargo, offering service throughout Quebec and the rest of Canada, as well the United States and a handful of global destinations. Many of its aircraft can land in more remote locations where runaways are made of gravel or ice. Its fleet includes 18 aircraft, with the 737-2K2C as the elder statesman, though only by a year, since Nolinor has another one of the world's oldest aircraft, with a 1975 737-200 still in use. There doesn't appear to have been any major issues with either of the Boeing aircraft.
Boarding a nearly 50-year-old airplane might seem like a dubious prospect, but as an aviation analyst Henry Harteveldt told the Telegraph, it's "not the age of the aircraft that matters, it's the maintenance." Sort of like those senior citizen bodybuilders out there. "Delta still operates Boeing 767s that were built 30 or more years ago. Granted, the cabins may be a little long in the tooth, but the aircraft themselves operate reliably and safely," he said. The obvious issue is that those aging airlines need to be maintained more often, and the spare parts can be difficult to find, so as costs add up, they may be scrapped altogether. Still, the 1974 737-2K2C seems to be going strong, and until it retires, its claim on seniority and experience as a passenger jet remains secure.