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Although the Boeing 737 is currently the best-selling commercial aircraft, the designs of the Seattle-based company for narrow-body aircraft have not always been appreciated by airlines. This is the case of the Boeing 737-600, outclbaded by the largest Boeing 737-700 and which would lose compared to the type of larger aircraft, the 737-700 carrying 1,128 orders to 737-600 69. However, these Airplanes have played a crucial role for the airlines for which they operate and some continue to serve them today.
While the Boeing 737-700 was designed to replace the Boeing 737-300, the Boeing 737-600 would be designed to replace the Boeing 737-500. The aircraft would be designed to accommodate 108 pbadengers in a two-clbad or 123-pbadenger configuration in an all-economy seating configuration. The aircraft would be just under eight feet shorter than the 737-700 at 102 feet and 6 inches and would have a maximum takeoff weight of 144,500 pounds.
Despite its smaller size than its 737s, the 737-600 would have a range of 3,235 nautical miles among Boeing's best 737s and would use the same CFM International CFM56-7 engine, which would also be used in its aircraft designs. twin. The first Boeing 737-600 would be delivered to SAS Scandinavian Airlines in 1995 and the last to WestJet in 2006.
A total of 69 aircraft would be delivered and 37 of them are still active on three continents. Due to the low sales of the cell, the 737-600 is the only 737NG to never get an option for winglet upgrades.
In addition to being the first to operate this type of aircraft, SAS Scandinavian would also earn the title of Greater Operator with 30 deliveries over six years. Of the 30 originally delivered to SAS, six are still part of the company but are being replaced slowly by Airbus A320neos. The Boeing 737 Next Generation fleet is expected to be phased out by 2023.
Meanwhile, planes tend to stick to inter-Scandinavian trips with flights to Stavanger, Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim dominating their schedule. However, the aircraft type can also be spotted occasionally outside the peninsula with flights to Paris Charles de Gaulle, London Heathrow, Brussels, Amsterdam and Düsseldorf from their Oslo hub included in the program. All SAS 737-600s are configured in economy seats, with two different versions offering 123 or 120 pbadengers.
Since SAS Scandinavian abandoned its fleet, the new title of the largest operator of the 737-600 has been awarded to WestJet of Canada, which operates the last 13 built cells of this type. Deliveries for the Calgary-based airline would begin in 2005 and last a little over a calendar year before ending in September 2006.
All 13 aircraft do not have a retirement date and are still very active in the WestJet fleet, making inter-Canada calls between and around Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, as well as longer routes. , like St. John's in Orlando and Calgary in Phoenix. WestJet operates the aircraft in a mixed configuration with 12 Economy Plus seats in 101 standard seats.
The remaining 12 Boeing 737-600 aircraft, operated for commercial purposes, are used by North African airlines. Tunisair holds seven and Air Algérie still uses five. For Tunisair, planes are widely used for flights to Europe, with flights from Monastir, Tunis and Djerba to Nice, Vienna, Paris-Orly, Brussels and the German cities of Hamburg, Frankfurt and Berlin dominating the device calendar. The airline will also use these aircraft to fly between the three Tunisian cities, which will both reposition aircraft and increase domestic flight capacity. Among the current operators, Tunisair has the highest density of seats, Boeing aircraft being used in an economic configuration of 126 seats.
While Tunisair has the highest density, the neighboring airline, Air Algérie, operates at the lowest density. Their Boeing 737-600s have room for only 101 people on board. The planes are configured with 85 Economy seats and 16 Business Affairs seats. The Air Alger 737-600 aircraft are mainly maintained at the national level, the flights to Oran, Annaba, Tamanrbadet and Ouargla occupying most of the flight schedule of their hub in Algiers. The airline will also deploy the plane in the cities of southern Europe, flights to Barcelona, Marseille and Milan constituting destinations for this type of plane.
The last six devices are a little more difficult to access and are operated by the Las Vegas-based company, Janet Airlines. The aircraft were purchased after being used by Air China in the early and mid-2000s before being returned to GECAS in 2009. Janet would use them to replace their aging fleet of Boeing 737-200s, this fleet being deployed in Las Vegas. . The planes are used to transport personnel to the southwestern United States.
Regarding previous operators, the list of missing airlines in recent years and names of people who have used these devices to become or increase their success. The second largest European operator of the Boeing 737-600 was Malév Hungarians, who had used six aircraft until their bankruptcy in 2012. The six planes would be broken after Malév's disappearance, while their plane had not than ten years. Meanwhile, Air China would inherit the order of six Boeing 737-600s from China Southwest Airlines and use them from 2003 to 2009.
The last major airline to operate more than two Boeing 737-600s would be the British company FlyGlobeSpan, which took over four Scandinavian SAS 737-600s in the mid-2000s and used the all-economy configuration for flights departing from United Kingdom. SAS would take two planes in 2008, while the last two would be transferred to Easter Jet (South Korea) and Midwest Airlines (Egypt) before FlyGlobeSpan suspended operations in December 2009. Midwest would fail quickly and its solo plane would be broken in 2010 Easter Jet would operate its aircraft until 2013, when new Boeing replaced the smaller one.
Finally, Austrian Airlines and Lauda Air operated two Boeing 737-600s between 2000 and 2012. Both OE-LNL and OE-LNM registered aircraft would be delivered to Lauda in May 2000 and operated for that airline until they were merged. with Austrian in 2009. Austrian will use this plane until 2012, when he will retire and be scrapped in the UK at MOD St. Athan the same year.
Although the Boeing 737-600 never receives the pomp and circumstance of its Boeing 737 Next Generation comrades, it has served its respective fleets for more than 20 years and continues to make waves, even if it does not make a difference. never found the success that Boeing projected. For Boeing fanatics looking for a rare Boeing experience, a wingless 737 is always an option thanks to the airlines above and the Boeing 737-600.
Ian McMurtry
Ian has been a lawyer since 2004, when he began seeing US Airways Express aircraft at Johnstown Airport in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He now lives in Wichita and enjoys watching planes in Kansas City and Wichita, as well as those flying high above his home. He pilots with more than 40 hours of experience behind a Cessna 172, a Diamond DA-20 and a Piper PA-28. He operates flights for most of his domestic flights with Southwest Airlines and with Icelandair when he is flying to Europe. Ian's road map extends from Iceland and Alaska to the north to St. Martin to the south. He studied at Wichita State University, where he studied aerospace and mechanical engineering.
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