The Boeing 737 family is immensely popular, with almost 11,000 examples from the entire series having been produced since 1966. Some of these have been more extensively used than others, but which ones come out on top? Having examined the most flown Airbus A320s last week, it's now the turn of the US narrowbody twinjet. Let's take a look!

Boeing 737 silhouette
30 Boeing 737s have amassed more than 75,000 flight hours. Photo: Getty Images

Top of the pile

According to data from ch-aviation.com, there are presently 30 Boeing 737s with more than 75,000 flight hours on the clock at the last measurement. Just over 500 hours separate the top three, but the most used example at the time of writing is Canadian North's C-GOPW.

Currently leased to Air Inuit on an ACMI basis, this 41.31-year-old Boeing 737-200C had clocked up an impressive 79,185 flight hours as of May 2021. Spread across 66,209 flight cycles, this gives an average cycle length of one hour and 12 minutes. Its annual average is 1,938.47 hours across 1,621 hours, with a daily utilization rate of five hours and 21 minutes.

This aircraft entered service with Pacific Western Airlines way back in 1980, before joining Canadian Airlines in 1987. It became an Air Canada plane in April 2001, and joined Canadian North eight months later. For 41 years of service, it has always had the same registration.

Canadian North Boeing 737-200C
Canadian North operates the world's most used 737. Photo: John Davies via Wikimedia Commons

Common at US low-cost carriers

If you're looking for well-used 737s, US low-cost carriers are a good place to start. We can see from ch-aviation's data that 13 of the top 30 belong to this type of airline, with 12 flying for Southwest. The 13th example is the most-used in this category, and has the second-highest number of total flight hours overall. It flies for Sun Country Airlines.

Registered as N8059A, this 22.92-year-old Boeing 737-800BCF is only just over half the age of Canadian North's table-topping 737. Despite this, it comes very close in terms of usage, having clocked up 78,667 flight hours across 31,070 cycles as of July 2021.

Southwest flies the world's fourth most flown, in the form of N711HK. This 23.67-year-old 737-700 falls behind its Sun Country competitor with 78,202 hours, although it has racked up more flight cycles (47,167). Its other 11 737s with more than 75,000 flight hours are all 737-700s. Southwest operates 461 of these, and they are 17.2 years old on average.

Southwest Boeing 737
Southwest has 12 737s with more than 75,000 hours on the clock. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

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Extensively used European 737s

Europe is also home to a selection of rather busy 737s. Indeed, nine of the 30 examples with more than 75,000 flight hours come from this continent, of which the most flown is LZ-LVK. This 737-300 ranks third overall with 78,650 hours across 65,276 cycles in 29.42 years of service. It belongs to ALK Airlines, which has another 737-300 with 77,602 hours.

Elsewhere, three 737-800s with between 76,427 and 78,140 hours can be found at Russia's S7 Airlines. These are among the youngest with this many hours, aging between 19.87 and 20.55 years old. The 737-800 is also a highly-used model at Transavia, which has two examples with more than 75,000 hours. Finally, ASL Airlines Belgium and Bluebird Nordic each have a single 737-400SF in this category (77,018 and 75,007 hours respectively).

Have you flown on any of these well-used 737s? What other aircraft would you like us to examine in terms of flight hours? Let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments!