Coming back down to earth.

• Position: Transportation industry in North Carolina - Industry Overview

It wounded local pride, but Continental Airlines' decision in June to close its Greensboro hub was a return to normal - at least compared with the airline-industry shenanigans that had landed it there two years earlier.

"They had nearly 100 flights a day here, and they just couldn't make that many pay," says Ted Johnson, manager of Piedmont Triad International Airport. "Airlines went back to making a little bit of money this year, and they quit doing some of the crazy things they were doing in the early 1990s."

It was that kind of year for most of the state transportation industry. Things calmed down. Trucking saw continued consolidation, but no dramatic events like the previous year's tortured buyout and demise of Carolina Freight Corp. "We don't have fewer trucks on the road this year, just fewer companies," says Elbert Peters, president of the North Carolina Trucking Association. The number dipped below 1,900.

But trucking, with 68,000 workers and a $1.8 billion payroll, remained the largest transportation segment. Freight was up 3.5%, although a 10-cent spike in diesel-fuel prices cut earnings.

Glimmers of competition emerged at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, where USAir accounted for 94% of all flights, and Raleigh-Durham International, where Durham-based Midway Airlines stepped in after American Airlines abandoned its hub. Midway is hurting, its earnings weakened by start-up costs and disruptive winter weather. The carrier put itself up for sale, but no deal panned out. In late fall it was negotiating with four potential backers for a cash infusion.

When Continental shut down its Triad hub, leaving 11 daily jet departures there, the airline added three flights at Charlotte, forcing USAir to match fares. And it added the same number at Raleigh-Durham. Delta and Northwest added flights there, too, and through September, passengers boardings at Raleigh-Durham were 2.4 million, up 9%.

Triad added three Northwest flights to Detroit and a daily discount flight by AirTrans Airlines to Orlando. The airport boarded just more than 1 million through September, down 24%. Charlotte's boardings rose 4% to 8.1 million.

Both Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham lost a feisty competitor in June when newcomer ValuJet shut down after a Florida crash. ValuJet's discounts, like Continental's, had forced other airlines to hack their fares. In October Atlanta-based ValuJet resumed flying at Raleigh-Durham and said it expects to reinstate other North...