The Boeing 737-300 first flew in 1984, and most airlines retired theirs years ago. In Britain, one carrier still flies it for passengers. Simple Flying's James Pearson wrote in July 2023 that Jet2 was the only UK operator of the type in passenger service, and a later piece from him in September 2025 showed it was still very much at work.

Seven aircraft, one base

Per Simple Flying, citing ch-aviation, Jet2 had seven 737-300s in September 2025. Each has 148 seats, all economy, and none has the quick-change capability to swap between passengers and freight. The article describes them as company-owned and paid off, and says they fly exclusively from Jet2's original base at Leeds Bradford.

How hard they worked

That September, the type flew 26 routes, sixteen of them flown entirely by the -300. Jet2 had 368 departures from Leeds Bradford that month, up from 305 a year earlier, and the 737-300 operated 43% of them. A year before, it was 36%.

Aeroroutes, reporting schedule filings on 17 October 2025, showed the type still based at Leeds Bradford for the 2025/26 winter. From 1 February 2026 it was due to join flights to Alicante, Faro, Geneva, Malaga, Palma, Prague and Salzburg, plus a single flight to Reykjavik Keflavik on 22 February 2026.

How old they are

Simple Flying's September 2025 article gave G-GDFG as the oldest, delivered to Air Europa in 1997, which makes it around 29 years old now. Its 2023 fleet table lists other airframes with earlier delivery dates, including G-GDFT, delivered to British Airways in June 1996, so I would not lean on "oldest". Either way, these are very old aircraft by airline standards.

Simple Flying says the final aircraft are due to be retired in winter 2027/28. That is a report, not a date from Jet2, and I have not seen the airline confirm it.

On my screen

The BBBRadar desk unit shows type, registration, route where one is filed, callsign and altitude. On 6 October 2026 three Jet2 737-300s crossed it:

  • G-GDFG, Palma to Leeds Bradford, at 34,000 feet.
  • G-GDFM, Alicante to Leeds Bradford, at 34,025 feet.
  • G-GDFT, Luton to Alicante, at 10,700 feet.

The first two are on the Leeds Bradford run you would expect. The third is not. A Luton departure is outside the Leeds Bradford-only pattern in the September 2025 figures, which were a snapshot of that month, so I am simply reporting what the screen showed.

The G-GDFG and G-GDFM catches came from footage where my camera exposure had blown out. The labels read clearly, but I am leaving out G-GDFG's callsign because the glyphs were ambiguous.

What I have not confirmed

I do not know how many of the seven are flying now. In 2023, G-GDFM was reported parked, yet it has since flown again, so fleet counts move. The seven is a September 2025 figure.

The photographs with this article are of Jet2 737-300s. Two show G-GDFM, taken in 2013 and 2016, and one shows a Jet2 737-300 at Leeds Bradford in August 2021. I have not identified that third aircraft's registration. Credits are below.

Sources