The first flight from Concourse B at Salt Lake City International Airport took off early Tuesday morning bound for Oakland, California, via Southwest Airlines departing just after 7 a.m.

Concourse B opened with 21 gates to be used by Alaska Airlines, American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest and United. Last month, the majority of the facility — dubbed The New SLC — officially began operations with Delta Air Lines occupying 25 gates in Concourse A-west, including six international gates.

It is the culmination of years of planning and billions of dollars of construction work, as well as the end of an era, officials said.

“It’s a fine day. It’s mixed emotions because we’re saying goodbye to this really remarkable old airport, which served this community so well for so long, so many memories for the people of Salt Lake and Utah. On the other hand, we have this brand-new state-of-the-art airport,” said Bill Wyatt, executive director of the Salt Lake City Department of Airports. “Today is like icing on the cake. It’s been six weeks since the successful opening of The New SLC and today we welcome all of our airline partners to their new home in Concourse B, which completes Phase I of the project,”

To commemorate the completion, the city held a ribbon-cutting ceremony prior to the inaugural flight departure at gate B17. As of midnight, aircraft stopped loading and unloading passengers in the former airport concourses C, F and G. All airlines serving the airport are now operating out of entirely new facilities, Wyatt added.

“We have terminated use of the old airport, which will soon be demolished in anticipation of the next phase of this airport,” he said. “So very exciting. It’s great to see real people here, masked up, social distancing, about to get on an airplane for the first time in this concourse.”

Concourse B will include three new local restaurants and five new shops. More dining options and retail are expected to come online as passenger volume increases, he said.