Briefs

Eastern Airways will expand its route network to London for the first time with the launch of three daily flights between Stansted and Manchester on March 31. Eastern's schedule will mirror the existing timetable of British Airways CitiExpress, which is withdrawing from the route. The five-year-old independent regional is taking over eight routes from BA CitiExpress along with 12 Jetstream 41s.

Atlantic Southeast Airlines, a Delta Connection carrier, will pull its services out of Dallas Love Field, home of Southwest Airlines, on June 1 in order to concentrate its operations at nearby Dallas/Ft. Worth airport. ASA began flying six CRJ flights daily between Atlanta and Love Field in July 2000. ASA will boost its DFW service from 153 flights to 209 while Delta Air Lines will reduce flights from 87 to 63 beginning in April.
Ryanair has stated that it will keep Buzz in the air, relaunching 13 of Buzz's 24 routes on May 1. The announcement followed an agreement by more than 90 percent of Buzz pilots agreeing to new employment contracts. Ryanair had announced last month that it would shut down the carrier if the pilots refused to accept the new contract agreement. Ryanair had given roughly 200 out of the 600 employees at Buzz until last Friday to accept new contracts. Ryanair is buying Buzz from KLM. The Dutch carrier had also indicated it would shut down Buzz, which is currently losing more than one million euros ($1.08 million) per week, if the purchase deal did not go through. The takeover of Buzz from KLM is now expected to be completed early next month pending government approval. The airline presently flies 737s and BAe 146s.

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