Varig health, financial, social and recreational benefits to its employees. Decades later this foundation would be called . In 1946, with the addition of Douglas DC-3 and later the Curtiss C-46 to its fleet, Varig was able to greatly increase its network by adding cities in the states of Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro, facing fierce competition with Real Transportes Aéreos, and SAVAG. On , Varig bought Aero Geral, a small airline with concessions to fly from Natal until Santos. With this purchase Varig greatly enlarged its operations in Brazil, extending services beyond Rio de Janeiro until
MetroJet (American airline) by the time the last MetroJet 737 was retired in December. MetroJet (American airline) MetroJet was a no-frills airline brand operated as a wholly owned division of US Airways from 1998 until 2001. After the conclusion of painstaking labor negotiations in 1997, US Airways sought to head off burgeoning competition from low-cost carriers in its strongest region, the U.S. Northeast. Competitor Southwest Airlines was encroaching from its base in the West as were Delta Express and AirTran Airways from the South. Like them it would offer a single class of service, operate a single type of aircraft, which consisted of