Blizzards and Airports

It appears that a blizzard is striking the Western United States, and shutting down the Denver Airport. The airport is apparently the fifth busiest in the United States. No doubt, this is in part due to the fact that it is a hub for United Airlines and Frontier.

[You can check out the Denver Airport's website at: http://www.flydenver.com/]

Because of the hub-and-spoke system that most airlines use, when a major airport/hub is shut-down, it creates problems throughout the national air-traffic system (and possibly internationally as well). So, if an airport like Denver is shut down, would it be possible to divert "hub activity" to somewhere else, like Boise, Idaho?

Obviously, there would be a lot of difficulties. Boise is a much smaller airport, has fewer runways, fewer gates, and fewer employees. But even with delays, wouldn't it be better to keep moving the passengers until the Denver airport could re-open?

It would work a little like this: the planes that were supposed to arrive in Denver could land in Boise, and then be used to carry the passengers who are going out-bound from Denver. Because Denver is a hub, most passengers are not staying there, but moving on to somewhere else. The passengers who are wanting to go to Denver could just stay in whichever city they were starting from; they are no worse than they would be. Meanwhile, the passengers going somewhere else could pass through Boise instead of Denver.

This plan is probably fraught with too many difficulties, but it's interesting to think about.