There are all sorts of impressive statistics for commercial airliners, cost per available seat mile, cost per block hour, how many hours of flight per incident, how many operators fly a specific aircraft, types of variants of aircraft … but sometimes its difficult to put all these numbers into perspective.

First the basics, the Boeing 737 first entered service on the 10th of February 1968 with Lufthansa. Since entering service the 737 has been the most popular commercial airliner ever built, with 6,687 737s having been built, as of February 2011.

The Airbus A320 entered service 20 years after the Boeing 737 on the 28th of March 1988 with Air France. Since the A320 entered service there have been 4,582 A320s built, as of February 2011.

With so many of Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s flying all over the world, just how often do these planes land and take off?

Airbus estimates that an Airbus A320 takes off somewhere in the world every 2.5 seconds. Normally this statistic would be impressive … until stacked up against the Boeing 737. Boeing estimates every single second 2.2 of their 737s land or take off somewhere in the world.

As airlines look to Boeing and Airbus to design replacements for the 737 and A320, clearly these planes aren’t going anywhere any time soon.

Happy Flying!