Varig Natal along the Brazilian coast and was thus better prepared to compete with Panair do Brasil and Cruzeiro do Sul. In 1949 the Brazilian government granted to Varig the concession to fly to the United States, since the original airline which had the concession, Cruzeiro do Sul, was unable to operate the services. The inaugural flight between Rio de Janeiro-Galeão and New York-Idllwild (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) was on . The services were operated by three new Lockheed L-1049G Super Constellations. On flights to Buenos Aires using Curtiss C-46s started. In January 1956 Varig served 55 cities
Varig Flight 254 (270°). The Boeing 737 was not equipped with INS, using only automatic direction finders (ADF) and VOR. Months after the accident, the flight plan VARIG 254 used was shown to 21 pilots of major airlines in the world during a test conducted by the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations (IFALPA). No fewer than 15 pilots committed the same mistake that the VARIG flight 254 crew had made. After the flight 254 accident, VARIG would install Omega navigation systems in their aircraft. Also, there were several contributing factors to the accident: the pilot did not realise he should be