
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, October 11, 1994                   TAG: 9410110092
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: GREENSBORO, N. C.                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN GREENSBORO, GROWTH POSES NEW CHALLENGES

Twenty-five years ago, the Piedmont Triad International Airport was so small that people picked blackberries along the runway. Kids sometimes rode bikes across it.

Airport authorities also had to contend with ``blue-light bandits,'' pranksters who stole runway lights.

Today, the challenges for the Greensboro/High Point/Winston-Salem airport - forecast to be the nation's fastest-growing over the next five years - are far more complex.

Though the good times are rolling, the airport faces tough decisions. Airport officials are wary of spending $6 million for six new boarding gates because of the uncertain finances of Continental Airlines and USAir, the airport's largest tenants.

Continental has been losing money since last year, when it exited bankruptcy court for the second time.

The financial problems of USAir, which has had two fatal jet crashes since July, are also deepening. Amid efforts to preserve cash and reduce operating costs by $1 billion a year, the airline last week deferred dividend payments on its preferred stock.

Greensboro officials aren't convinced both will survive.

``It is like a poker game,'' said Ted Johnson, the airport's executive director. ``The hand I've been dealt includes two airlines with some financial problems.''

Greensboro boomed in the mid-1980s, when PeoplExpress flew round-trip to New York for $19. But the carrier folded. Then in 1991, Eastern Airlines went out of business, leaving one of the two concourses in Greensboro practically empty.

A year ago, however, Continental began to expand rapidly in Greensboro. It has grown from three daily flights to more than 80, as the airport has become a central point in the airline's nationwide low-fare, no-frills service, called Continental Lite.

The cheap fares initiated by Continental have lured so many people that the Greensboro airport is at times a chaotic collage of timid first-time fliers in overalls, impatient salespeople with cellular phones, and harried ticket agents getting an earful from irate passengers.

During the first seven months of this year, slightly more than three-fourths of Continental's flights arrived in Greensboro within 15 minutes of schedule. In July, it was 73.1 percent, compared with 79.5 percent for major U.S. carriers.

Katherine Birdsong, Continental's district marketing director in Greensboro, attributed the delays to ``growing pains.''

But nearly 190,000 passengers boarded flights in August, up 143 percent from a year earlier. (Roanoke Regional Airport boarded 33,326 passengers in the same month, up 15 percent from a year earlier.)

Continental is largely responsible for the jump - boarding 99,491 passengers in August, compared with 4,443 a year earlier. The four other carriers serving Greensboro - USAir, Delta, United and American - slashed fares in response to Continental, and all but American have gained passengers as a result.

Continental now employs 650 in Greensboro, up from 23 a year ago.

Aviation Systems Research forecasts passenger boardings in Greensboro will rise 51 percent over the next five years. That would make it America's fastest-growing airport, according to the Golden, Colo., aviation consulting firm.

This year, Greensboro boardings could reach a record 1.9 million, Johnson said.

by CNB