The arrival of Southwest Airlines at the Colorado Springs Airport last month pushed passenger numbers to the highest level since before the COVID-19 pandemic slowed air travel, the airport announced Wednesday.

The 57,758 passengers on outbound flights in March surged 67% from March 2020, when the pandemic cut passenger numbers by more than 25,000 from a year earlier. The monthly total was the highest since February 2020 and the percentage increase was likely the largest since expansion by the now defunct Western Pacific Airlines generated a record 2.39 million outbound passengers at the airport in 1996.

“We are thrilled with Southwest’s start. They had a huge impact on overall service. I even had travelers tell me that it (the airport) feels like a real airport again,” said Greg Phillips, the city’s aviation director. “I expect the numbers to get stronger in coming months, especially during the peak travel season this summer. We tried long and hard to get Southwest service. Now we have them, and a good part of the community is using those flights.”

Southwest began nonstop service March 11 with 13 daily flights to hubs in Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Even with just two-thirds of a month of operations, the low-fare giant boarded 17,645 passengers to displace United Airlines as the airport’s largest carrier by nearly 1,800 passengers. Southwest filled nearly 52% of the 34,115 seats available on its flights in March.

David Harvey, Southwest’s vice president for business and government sales, posted this month on LinkedIn that the carrier was “so pleased with our first three weeks of service at the Colorado Springs Airport.” He made the post after meetings with travel managers, agencies and community leaders at the airport.

Southwest CEO Gary Kelly told stock analysts on a conference call last week about the company’s first-quarter financial results that the new cities the carrier has added in recent months, including Colorado Springs, “are meeting or exceeding our expectations. I’m glad to have all of them as permanent additions to our route network.”

The airport’s passenger numbers for the first quarter were down 28.5% from the same period last year to 110,511 but that should change in coming months with Southwest’s arrival and United and American airlines restoring flights cut during the pandemic. March numbers for both carriers were up by double-digit percentages, with the only decline coming from Delta Air Lines, which has yet to restore any local flights.

The passenger numbers back up studies from the OAG Aviation Worldwide and Boyd Group International that forecast the Colorado Springs Airport will be among the nation’s fastest-growing airports for this year and the next three years.

Based on published airline schedules, OAG said passenger capacity at the local airport will grow 44.4% in July from two years earlier (before the pandemic) — ranking seventh among U.S. airports. Boyd forecasts passenger numbers will grow 38.7% between 2019 and 2024, the nation’s third-fastest growth behind Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport and Myrtle Beach International Airport.