A lot of this really does come down to the fact they don't fly hub-and-spoke. When planes and crew are delayed somewhere, it cascades down the entire line and

A lot of this really does come down to the fact they don't fly hub-and-spoke. When planes and crew are delayed somewhere, it cascades down the entire line and all the aircraft and crews are now at the wrong airports. With the hub system, they can do a "return to base" and try to go from there, but with Southwest not having a "base" they have to esentially halt the entire system and reboot it, which is what is going on here. At least that's part of the mess.