Abstract Air–water bubbly jets are studied experimentally in a relatively large water tank with a gas volume fraction, Co, of up to 80% and nozzle Reynolds number, Re, ranging from 3500 to 17,700. Measurements of bubble properties and mean axial water velocity are obtained and two groups of experiments are identified, one with relatively uniform bubble sizes and another with large and irregular bubbles. For the first group, dimensionless relationships are obtained to describe bubble properties and mean liquid flow structure as functions of Co and Re. Measurements of bubble slip velocity and estimates of the drag coefficient are also provided and compared to those for isolated bubbles from the literature. The study confirms the importance of bubble interactions to the dynamics of bubbly flows. Bubble breakup processes are also investigated for bubbly jets. It was found that a nozzle Reynolds number larger than 8000 is needed to cause breakup of larger bubbles into smaller bubbles and to produce a more uniform bubble size distribution. Moreover, the Weber number based on the mean water velocity appears to be a better criteria than the Weber number based on the bubble slip velocity to describe the onset of bubble breakup away from the nozzle, which occurs at a Weber number larger than 25.