Southwest Airlines announced Thursday it will begin flights to and from the Colorado Springs Airport early next year, fulfilling a decades-long effort by city officials to lure the popular carrier.

This can be a game-changer that makes our hyper-successful city even better. The nation’s largest airline, known for a loyal customer base, will make the Springs airport a more viable option for Coloradans seeking competitive fares in an environment less chaotic than Denver International Airport.

The Southwest announcement could not come at a better time, as the once-great DIA burdens customers with a renovation boondoggle in the main terminal that will drag on for several more years if all goes well. Here’s how Washington Post travel writer Jennifer Oldham describes DIA.

Travelers, the Post article explains, “navigate a partially gutted central terminal that disorients even the most seasoned volunteer airport ambassadors. Temporary white aluminum walls crisscrossing the Jeppesen Terminal’s fifth floor already stymie travelers hunting for security, baggage claim, bathrooms or an Uber. Exposed steel beams, wires and concrete loom above a terrazzo floor where passengers like Liz Larsen step after ascending an escalator from a train connecting the terminal to concourses.

“ ‘This is the worst airport to go to,’ ” Larsen, a frequent traveler, told the Post after arriving from Houston. “I feel like I need a divining rod to get through it.”

Before the terminal gutting, DIA frequently ranked among the best airports in the United States and even #1 as rated by The Wall Street Journal.

Airlines executives tried in futility to stop the main-terminal renovation. They argued it was not necessary and would generate costs that would force them to raise ticket prices. The project exceeded their fears when multiple cost overruns, delays and safety concerns caused the city to terminate a $770 million contract with private contractor the Great Hall Partners.

“The demise of the public-private partnership is instructive for other airports as they consider overhauls,” the Post article explains.

That’s a polite way of calling this fiasco a cautionary tale.

By expanding to Colorado Springs, Southwest will offer all Colorado travelers a safer, more peaceful, less daunting option for air travel. If city officials market the airport effectively, the benefits could be huge. Coloradans travel by air 3.2 times as much as the country’s general population, meaning the state could easily support two bustling and competitive airports.

As Denver tries to resolve an airport construction nightmare, choose to circumvent the madness. Discover or rediscover the Colorado Springs Airport. Do so knowing the country’s largest and most iconic airline, Southwest, considers it a pretty good choice.