Insanely stupid elves. They keep running towards another base and start to clog up themselves. I had 3 bases and one of them, with 3 pads, kept running dry from elves because they kept moving to another base.
I think its because they only check once for the closest task and then keep running though there are tasks closer to them. Maybe do so the closest units are assigned to the closest task according to priority. So when a sleigh returns it checks for the nearest free elves and reigndeers to see if they can fill it or something like that