It’s a fine example of late 1960s aviation technology — hard at work helping Justin Trudeau earn his second term as prime minister.

The Liberal leader raised eyebrows earlier this week after admitting his campaign consists of a second airplane — a Boeing 737-200 cargo freighter chartered from Montreal-based Nolinor Aviation — prompting Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer to label Trudeau a “climate hypocrite” during the French language debate on Oct. 2.

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Manufactured in 1975, the aircraft spent most of its life with Aer Lingus in Ireland before being purchased by Nolinor in 2017.

Considered one of the least efficient and worst polluting airliners in current service, the 737-200 was among the first generation of Boeing’s venerable 737 family of narrow-body airliners.

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The 737-200 was manufactured in 1966 and 1988, and only 58 remain in service today — largely by charter companies and airlines in developing nations such as Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Central African Republic as they’re the only airliner still capable of taking off and landing on gravel airstrips.

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Technical specifications for the 737-200 list a 4,899 kilometre range and, according to data provided by Nolinor, the craft burns an average 3,691 litres of fuel per hour with its Pratt & Whitney JT8D engines, introduced on the Boeing 727 in 1962.

Trudeau’s primary plane — a next-generation 737-800 chartered from Air Transat — has a published range of 7,400 km and consumes nearly 500 less litres of fuel per hour than the 200.

Photo by Ryan Remiorz / The Canadian Press

Using publicly available data from flight tracking websites, the Sun determined the Liberal’s cargo plane embarked on 35 trips between the beginning of the campaign on Sept. 11 and Oct. 4. logging over 27,000 km — nearly three-quarters the circumference of the earth.

While the plane’s longest flight was Sept. 19 between Halifax and Saskatoon — 3,239 km — many of the trips were under 200 kilometers.

The shortest flight was a 31 km hop between Mirabel — Nolinor’s home airport — and Montréal–Trudeau on Oct. 3.

That came a day before another series of short flights — 233 km from Montréal–Trudeau to Quebec City, 313 km to Mont-Joli a few hours later, 675 km to Ottawa International that evening, followed almost immediately by a 136 km return to Montréal-Mirabel by 8:30 p.m.

On Sept. 25, the plane departed Vancouver at 12:30 PDT on a 3,100 km flight to Sudbury ahead of his infamous ‘canoe’ campaign stop.

Photo by John Lappa / Postmedia Network

After landing in Sudbury, the plane almost immediately took off again for Peterborough, Ont., a 327 km trip south.

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The plane departed for Sudbury at 12:10 p.m. the next day, returning to Peterborough about two hours later.

It then flew to Toronto on the 27th — an 18 minute, 118 km hop.

Other short flights include Charlottetown to Halifax on Sept. 18 (160 km), five trips between Mirabel and Ottawa (136 km), and a 12 minute, 62 km journey from Toronto Pearson to Hamilton.

Advances in aviation over the past few decades, says Asia Times aviation journalist D.M. Chan, have largely concerned reducing weight and improving fuel efficiency.

“Engines are far, far better,” he told theSun,particularly between modern aircraft and those built prior to the 1970s oil crisis.

“They’re more efficient, not to mention quieter.”

Winglets, a relatively new innovation on commercial airliners intended to reduce wake turbulence behind aircraft, have resulted in significant fuel savings for airlines, Chan said, describing the savings from flared or curved wingtips equalling about 10 billion gallons of jet fuel — or a global emissions reduction of over 105 megatons of CO2.

The Toronto Sun contacted the Trudeau campaign requesting specific details about the plane’s short trips — specifically regarding the multiple flights between Sudbury and Peterborough.

Liberal party spokesperson Pierre-Olivier Herbert dismissed the Sun’s inquiries as a “ridiculous distraction” and criticized the Conservative Party for not purchasing carbon credits during the campaign.

The Trudeau campaign has promised to offset emissions during their campaign by purchasing carbon credits.