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I’ve seen this one on my way to the office in DXB. It’s clearly equipped with paired MAX winglets, however the engines are not curly. So judging by symptoms it’s not MAX. Was filming from a car, hence tail number is not visible. It’s A6-FEC, which, according to planespotters.net, is 737ng and 7+ years old. How did it get those winglets?

enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ The registration looks like it ends in "FES" not "FEC" to me. Doesn't really matter either way, they are both 737NG's, only FEC is 2 years older than FES. $\endgroup$
    – Ron Beyer
    Mar 9, 2020 at 20:22

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These are called Split Scimitar Winglets and they are offered as an upgrade for some existing Boeing 737 NG series aircraft:

Split Scimitar Winglets are offered by APB for the 737-800 and 737-900ER and came into service in early 2014. They are available as a retrofit to existing winglet aircraft.

A set of SSWs weigh 133kg (294Lb) per aircraft but give fuel savings of 1.6% on sectors of 1000nm rising to 2.2% on sectors of 3000nm. This equates to an extra 65nm range.

The modification requires a trailing edge wedge, strengthened stringers and ballast weight but no changes to any avionics or the FMC. The base price cost for an upgrade from blended winglets to SSWs was $555,000 as of 2014.

(b737.org.uk)

According to this article (in German), Flydubai is using this upgrade since 2019:

The low-cost airline from Dubai is equipping 30 Boeing 737-800s with so-called Split Scimitar Winglets. The scimitars on the wing tips save thousands of liters of fuel.

[...]

The first aircraft of the low-cost airline from Dubai - it bears the A6-FEC registration - has already been equipped with the split wing tips.

(translated by Google)

It is not exactly the same winglet as the MAX has (see also Why do newer 737s use two different styles of split winglets?) as you can see in the following images:

B737 NG winglet
(Flydubai Boeing 737 NG, aerotelegraph.com)

B737 MAX winglet
(Flydubai Boeing 737 MAX, photo by Nabeel A. Hashmi)

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    $\begingroup$ Those have to be REALLY effective to be worth over half a million dollars! $\endgroup$
    – MikeB
    Mar 10, 2020 at 13:24
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    $\begingroup$ @MikeBrockington If they fly 6 legs of 1000NM every day at 1.6% lower fuel burn, they save about 560kg of fuel a day. At \$600 per ton, that is \$336 saved per day, which means they save \$555,000 after about 4.5 years. At 2 legs of 3000NM every day (which saves 2.2%), they already break even after 3.3 years. $\endgroup$
    – Bianfable
    Mar 10, 2020 at 13:42
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    $\begingroup$ I didn't notice the 1.6% / 2.2% initially, but even those numbers are surprisingly high - for comparison, that sort of change on a racing car would be the difference between first and last on the grid. $\endgroup$
    – MikeB
    Mar 11, 2020 at 11:52

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