> Weather affects all airlines equally.

Nah. Storms are often highly localized, and different airlines have different cities they fly a lot through. A nasty storm cloud over Miami might not interrupt flights over Fort Lauderdale.

Weather over Chicago is gonna screw up ops for United. Weather over Atlanta will fuck up Delta.

> The Florida explanation doesn't make sense because my parents also had issues going from CA to Oregon. Occam’s razor.

Unfortunately, the simplest Occam’s Razor explanation is ignorance here.

Here’s an example Southwest flight. Tampa to St. Louis to LAX to San Jose.

https://www.southwest.com/air/flight-status/path.html?depart...

You might be flying LAX to SJC, but still be affected by planes getting stuck in Florida.