Flying one of the oldest 737s in the world

Welcome back to Caracas, where I'm still trying to catch the 737-200. Will today be the day? It might all come down to heading to the airport and praying that the airplane is waiting for me there, and that I can buy a ticket. So let's get into it. I think I'm feeling lucky today —I don't know if you've ever heard of the term "white whale," for a second I thought it might be a white elephant, but that's something else. A white whale is something that you pursue and just can't get, you can't grasp

it, and it becomes a kind of fixation or obsession. That's what the 737-200 is starting to feel like to me. If you've been following for a while this channel, you know that I went to Zimbabwe to try and get the aircraft, at least take a flat on it somewhere, and it got changed at the last minute. The plane was out of the country and I couldn't wait around another week or two for it to come back. A number of people wrote at that time pointing out that Venezuela still has a number of active 737-2

00s, and I started planning that trip. The gears started turning. And here we are, in Caracas, so if you've seen the previous videos in this series, you know I linked up with Avior and ended up flying on their 737-400, seeing their 200, which is currently finishing up a major overhaul in the hangar in Barcelona. It was amazing to see the 200 there and to step inside it and to get up close and look at the new parts, how they're working on it, and investing so much time and effort into this beauti

ful old bird, to help it fly for more years. But it wasn't a flight. Rutaca retired their last 737-200 last week, just before I arrived. Suddenly. At least I didn't know it was coming. Avior has theirs in maintenance almost ready—but not quite ready, it's supposed to come out and start flying again in a matter of weeks. Meanwhile, Estelar is another airline that has the 200. It's active in its fleet, but I found out only by talking to several people at Avior, that that aircraft is actually on th

e ground right now as well with some problems in maintenance, uh, status kind of unknown —future unknown. So that leaves Venezolana, their 200 is confirmed active and I've been talking to someone there to see if I could get some good access with them. That has not come through. I have two more days, 48 Hours basically left in Venezuela, and I need to figure out what I'm doing, and how I'm going to fly on that 200. It can be difficult even to figure out what its schedule is. You have to kind of p

oke around, look on the website, schedules that you find on International sites aren't necessarily reliable, so, this morning I'm going to look—to see Is the 200 flying from Caracas to anywhere in Venezuela today, or anywhere else for that matter? But it only flies in Venezuela as far as I know, I'm going to see if there's a flight I can book myself on, or maybe even just show up at the airport and try and get myself on the thing once I've confirmed that it really is a 200. So I know that Venez

olana flies from Caracas to Porlamar some days, that's on Margarita Island. They have a flight today at 11:00 a.m. It's currently 10 to 8. This is my white whale, so here we go: 24th, Caracas-Porlamar, today, 24th—returning—24th. As much as I'd like to go to the beach, today has to be all about the airplane. Laser focus on 737-200, okay? If we believe this, there are tickets for sale on an 11:00 a.m. flight to Porlamar. It is listed as the 737-200. But the website had other plans. Who knew there

were many possible error codes when trying to buy a ticket? This seems like a pretty good bet, and it may be my chance to catch this thing. I don't know if it's flying tomorrow at all or from Caracas or anything, so let's go to the airport! —No, no, no , no. He's looking for the 11 flight, to see if he can get on board that Venezolana flight, and, if he does, he goes to Porlamar, and comes back in the 7th flight, He doesn't want to stay in Margarita, He wants to fly on that plane, and then come

back on it to Caracas. He wants to specifically fly on that aircraft. And then come back to Caracas. If he gets on that 11am, he's going to tell me right away which time of the day he'll return. Perhaps 2 or 3 pm. Then, you exit through that door, cross the street, and wait for us right next to this truck here. Ok. And there where the lady is, we pick you up. Hi, good morning. I wanted to know if it's possible to buy a plane ticket to Porlamar, today. Today. At 11 am? And is it the 737-200? The

MD—Yes. —That one left for Barquisimeto this morning. Ok. Is it the 732? Okay; that's good. I want that. The little one? Are you sure? Yes. There are so few of those in the world, so, yes. For me, it's like… a classic. —$100.59. —Do you have luggage? No. Stay around gate 2. Gate 2. Boarding time 10 am. Okay perfect. I think I've finally done it. My white whale is just meters away. Walking up to the gate now to confirm its existence, but I just saw a JT8 engine through the window here, and I can

hardly believe it. Going to Margarita Island and then turning right around and coming back. Not only is this one of very few 737-200s flying regular commercial service in the world, it's actually right now the only active 737-200 in Venezuela. Coming here, I thought maybe there were three or four flying; actually, every single other one is either in maintenance or parked indefinitely, or we don't know the future, so it's kind of incredible managing to catch… the one. Look at this. What do you r

eckon? Old Southwest seats? This aircraft never flew for Southwest as far as I can tell, which makes me wonder about the market for secondhand cabin fittings. Are there companies out there that find new homes for things like old seats when airlines are done with them? I guess there must be, and see if you can spot the other thing that clearly came from another airline at some point on this aircraft, and as I had no special access on this one, I had to sweet talk my way into a chat with the pilot

s. Luckily they were very friendly. Unfortunately they told me some regulators were on board, so that would mean no jump seat for me. Still, you kind of do need to experience this as a passenger, don't you? If only to stare out at those very unique engines. Impressive. I'm making a lot of videos on cabins, across the world, but I've never seen stuff this old. This technology is now 60 years old. How does it feel to drive it? —Easy! Is it? What country are you from? Sweden. —Oh, Sweden. —Well, it

's just as if you were to drive a Volkswagen from the sixties. Like a beetle? —Exactly; just like a beetle. —I've been flying this plane for… 12 years. Me. It has 13 years in the company. Ok, so, all the time. —Yes. And I have 19 years of experience flying as a pilot. I graduated when I was 20, and then I came here to Venezolana. I am 21 years old and I entered the company in October That's great! Congrats! This aircraft's technology— This is an aircraft for short and medium range flights. Very

faithful, as they say, very safe. Because it is very economical to maintain. Easier? Or what? —Yes. The bad thing about these aircrafts is that the fuel consumption is high compared to the rest of the world. Of course. But, in this country, that's not a problem. This is an airplane that you can find operative for $600,000. Unlike a 733 or a 734 that you need $2,000,000 to operate. So that's why they have it operating. Boeing 737-200 from 1978. What's your name? —Gabriel. Adenis Campos. Javier Po

leo. At your service. So, let's go for a quick flight on this beautiful old bird. It's 30 minutes over to Margarita Island, which is not far at all from where I was in Barcelona, just yesterday. The recline doesn't work, and things are not exactly factory-fresh in here, but who cares. We are starting to descend already. We arrive a few hours after a Nordwind Triple 7 direct from Moscow. As it turns out there's a thriving business shuttling Russian tourists to beach resorts here on Margarita. The

flights are long, though, as they have to route around the top of Scandinavia to avoid EU airspace. It's all pretty fascinating. Nice! And I get a little bonus time after everyone leaves the plane because everyone here on board —the crew is so friendly, they saw my interest and, uh yeah, walking around the plane without anybody on this classic thing, the oldest commercial plane currently flying in the world. I'm not sure if that includes props or not, but anyway it's about 45 years old. This is

so to treat to be able to ride this plane before it disappears forever. There is actually a kind of passport check here, even if you're just coming from Caracas, which surprised me. I gather it has a special status, making it not exactly the same as other domestic destinations in Venezuela, but if anyone has more info about what that status is exactly, I'm eager to hear more. I'm actually realizing that it might be tight to check in, depending on the deadline, to check in for the flight coming

back, cuz they wouldn't check me in in Caracas. I thought we'd have plenty of time with a tiny airport, but there was an immigration check coming in. I am not sure why, so now I have to find the Venezolana desk and hope they let me on the flight back; otherwise, I guess I'm in Margarita for the day. It's not the worst thing to happen, but I want that 200 again. Okay, let's see, I didn't need to worry, though, it was all very straightforward, and I got back airside in no time. All right, let's ge

t back on this plane. And, oh my, it is very hard to capture how loud it is back here on a microphone. Also, we're getting so used to super quiet aircrafts these days, that it's amazing to think this was the norm a few decades back. A thrilling experience in any case. It's so loud back here. And it's all good vibes on Venezolana today. There's just a quick soft drink service, but on a 30-minute flight, it's impressive they even manage that. We make a nice tight turn to line up for Runway 10 left

at Caracas, and the landing itself is a little bit gusty, which our little 200 handles just fine, and to cap things off we're treated to a view of those very unique thrust reversers. What an awesome couple of flights. That was over very quickly. That last landing was intense. A lot of wind and then actually they greased the landing, which was impressive. I noticed that the runways are not in the best condition here, and these planes have to put up with a lot. I have a feeling the 200 is uniquel

y suited to do that well. It can handle it, it's rugged, beautiful couple of flights, so loud in the back there, I wouldn't want to do a long flight, and I wouldn't want to do many, but what an experience. —That was quick, uh? I'm clearly going to have to come back to this wonderful country to fly some MD 80s and catch Avior's refurbished 200 at least. Thanks for joining me on this adventure. I hope you enjoyed it. In Caracas, for FlightRadar24, I'm Gabriel Leigh.