Easter holiday plans for thousands of people will have to be altered following a decision to cancel all April flights of low-cost carrier Buzz, it was announced today.

And there are fears that Irish budget airline Ryanair, which takes over Buzz on April 1, will also scrap a number of Buzz's routes.

Ryanair refused to confirm the cancellation of the April Buzz flights today, saying that that it would announce details "before the end of February".

But a spokeswoman for Buzz, which is owned by Dutch airline KLM, said: "The April flights have been cancelled and this is a Ryanair decision. We are just following orders."

She went on: "We are not taking bookings for any flights in April. Anybody who is already booked for an April flight will be given a full refund or the opportunity to change their flight."

Ryanair's takeover of Buzz, for which it is paying £15m, was announced at the end of last month. A Ryanair spokeswoman said today: "We want to eliminate Buzz's annual losses of 30m euros (£20m). The situation is getting worse and Buzz is losing more than 1m euros a week."

There is speculation that Ryanair might scrap Buzz routes to some French destinations, including Bergerac, Limoges and Dijon. Ryanair also prefers to fly to smaller, less well-known airports and could therefore drop Buzz's flights to Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.