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Now that Skybus Airlines is cleared for takeoff, the transformation of Piedmont Triad International Airport has begun.

Skybus will open a hub here in January and gradually increase its flights through February. Airport officials hope the new flights will reverse the declining passenger numbers of the past three years and bring fast growth.

The first obvious addition at the airport will be Skybus kiosks at ticket counters in the main terminal building, with employees available to check bags. Although the super discount airline doesn't have ticket agents, it offers bag-check service for $5 a bag.

The airline is already installing computers for those services.

Inside the north concourse, Skybus is readying four gates.

These are holding and boarding areas for the airline's flights to such destinations as Burbank, Calif., and Gulfport-Biloxi, Miss. The airline offers no assigned seats, so the waiting rooms are typically packed with passengers hoping to board as quickly as possible.

Waiting passengers who don't want to pay for food on Skybus flights can pick up something in this area, served by a variety of restaurants owned by Creative Host Services.

And airport officials want to be sure the company is ready to handle the hundreds of extra people who will pass through the terminal every day.

Henry Isaacson, the board's chairman, called an official with Creative Host and "I told him he needed to be sure that he had the personnel, equipment and food to handle those passengers as they come in."

Isaacson also suggested that the company offer food carts during the early morning, an especially busy flight time.

Boarding a Skybus plane could be a foreign experience for many passengers because they'll walk across tarmac outside to climb up to the plane rather than descend covered jet bridges.

That change allows Skybus to open the front and rear doors of a plane for quicker loading and unloading. The airline has built its low-cost strategy on being able to land and take off within 25 minutes, and every second is valuable.

"If there's more than a 5-to-10 minute taxi time we don't do it," said Bill Diffenderffer, Skybus' chief executive officer.

"You're driving an airplane instead of flying it."

At PTI, that means installing "switchback" areas at the gates, where passengers descend steps or ramps to walk outside.

That walk to the planes could be a brisk one in bad weather, a situation not lost on airport authority member Nancy Vaughan.

"Can we try to think of something for foul weather to get people to and from the planes?" she said at a recent meeting. "Because that could really ruin the start of a vacation."

It's possible to rig some covering, said Ted Johnson, the airport's executive director, but not if it extends the 25-minute turnaround.

The airport is expanding its baggage conveyors for Skybus, and the airline is hiring a contractor to do much of that work.

That company, Delta Global Services, will also be in charge of equipment to push airplanes away from loading areas and other services, said Denis Carvill, the vice president of airport ground operations for Skybus.

Skybus trains its flight attendants in Greensboro, and graduated its first class of 20 on Dec. 5. A second group is already in training.

Skybus is setting up a flight attendant base here with offices to house those flight attendants, Carvill said. The airline is also setting up a base for captains and pilots, and various electronic services are being installed.

It will operate a base for daily maintenance on planes. That division will work from space under the terminal with tools and racks stored there.

Heavier maintenance would require a hangar, Carvill said.

Part of Skybus' low-cost strategy is to fly its planes for about 15 hours a day and then maintain them every night at the base.

If Skybus grows at PTI, it will eventually need more overnight storage for its planes. Mickie Elmore, the airport's director of development, said PTI is now paving space outside the terminal, expanding it from four to seven parking spaces.

Hundreds of extra passengers may need a quick expansion of car parking as well. So PTI is grading a parking lot to hold 2,000 cars that should be ready in the spring. It will be stone-covered at first and could be paved later.

In all, the startup initially will require an extra 75 employees, and Carvill wants them and their equipment ready to go at least five days before the first expanded service begins Jan 3.

"We really want to be five days out," Carvill said, "and have everything sitting there humming, just waiting."

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com