sdsearch

Because Southwest refuses to go hub and spoke like the other carriers, and thus goes point-to-point-to-point-to-point, not to provide service from the first point to the last point, but stmply to use the plane efficiently for a number of separately-needed point-to-point flights.

They don't necessarily fly enough between any of those (mostly) secondary cities to be able to dedicate a plane to flying and back and forth on any shorter "more logical" subset of these routes.

I'm not sure easily they can solve this without going to something closer to a hub-and-spoke model. But then wouldn't likely have flights like Sacramento to St Louis, etc, because probably neither one of those cities would be a hub for Southwest.

If you want a hub-and-spoke airline, fly a hub-and-spoke airline, instead of flying Southwest.

Or if you want to fly Southwest efficiently, ignore where their planes go throughout the day and just book the most time-efficient connection (if there is no nonstop). Don't look for "direct" flights, this is what "direct" flights are on Southwest.

There's probably no person that actually flies this routing the whole day, only the plane itself does. No passengers choose that routing, the crew times out so they have to change crews along the way, etc. It's just to keep the plane in use all day, that's it.