Flight Route vs. Weather

[cool92092]

A friend of mine is coming to LGA from DFW and while looking up the flight I noticed it took a route noticeably longer than straight line. My first thought was the mountains along the eastern coast but then thought it shouldn't make much of a difference for an AA flight cruising FL350. I checked weather and it shows the path going parallel to a cold front slightly in front. I didn't see any radar echoes either in the vicinity that would cause such a deviation.
Anyone can shed some light why it was beneficial/necessary to fly this path instead of straight line? Could it be just for ATC purposes?
Pic is attached to better explain what I'm saying.

 

[Maurus]

They have the Dryer VOR (DJB) in their flight plan. It is one of the busiest if not the busiest overall of all the VOR's in the nation because of x-country traffic. Not to mention all the Arrivals and Departures the thing is in.

MIP3 does not include the Dryer VOR, but Dryer is one of the busiest in the nation and I wouldn't be surprised to see them file to it.

Concerning weather, it is just a coincidence that it looks like they are along the cold front. If you look at previous flights, a lot of them have the same planning as this very flight.

 

[Polar742]

Anyone can shed some light why it was beneficial/necessary to fly this path instead of straight line? Could it be just for ATC purposes?

The traffic density on the east coast causes this. As the plane is coming out of LGA, you have to climb out of the traffic areas (not very technical, I know, but it covers the bases....) of airports you'll be passing. The system is designed with certain corridors for the climbing traffic, and descending traffic into and out of each of the high-volume east coast airports. You could liken the corridors to a highway, especially out on the east coast since it's so busy. That's the reason storms way outside the east coast affect it so much. If one of the corridors is blocked due to a thuderstorm, all the traffic (and it's alot. I'm not ATC, but have been in there enough to know it's a huge amount) off that route has to be rerouted into another corridor that's already jam-packed.

That is a rough, overly simplified explination, but basically that's it.