Fortunately, most of what flies out of OKC is United and Southwest. I am not a fan either of AA.
I am surprised they drove from Tulsa to Okc to fly AA to DC. That is a 2 hour drive. Tulsa would have had Southwest and United flights that would have taken them to DC through Houston or Chicago.
I live in Fayetteville, NC, which has an airport that links to Atlanta, then Chicago than Minneapolis/St Paul - then I have to drive 4 hours.
Or I can drive 1 1/4 hours to Raleigh, fly to Chicago, transfer and fly to Rochester, MN and drive an hour.
Sometimes the shortest first leg isn’t the fastest route.
Sometimes flights are full out of Tulsa, or at least higher fares. A few years back we had tickets from Ft Smith to Tucson for $300 because Tulsa to Tucson was $600. Then AA cancelled our flight and we were put on a 6am flight too early to drive to from Tulsa. So I called and asked to switch our tickets to fly from Tulsa instead. Voila! Round-trip from Tulsa for $300. So AA did ok for our cancelled flight on that trip.