Unexpected flight route

[maccboy]

Can anyone explain why this plane has chosen to take the route it has? Why does it not just go north from the runway? Cheers.

[Hill92]

High ground to the north west. Needs space to climb first before they can cross the Alps.

[maccboy]

Cheers! That makes sense. I noticed an earlier flight did the same thing.

[HiAsAKite]

Yup.. huge mountains in the way!

[InformationSuperHighway]

Generally always a good reason, they don't like to waste fuel for fun

I fly out of LAX regularly and the routes / loops they go through are wild... all for air traffic reasons of course.

[Mabbs9]

Also can be interactions with inbound routes but I agree that here is the proximity of the terrain that influences the departure routes. Notice the min alts and spd control on the departure too.