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
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