Its the worst time to be at work. Ive had absolute meltdowns in the ocean at like 4AM before. Changes every night depending on if the Ocean is hot, what the weather is, whos at LAX, whos at TMU, etc.
Pre-COVID, the Pineapple rush into LAX was becoming even more of a safety hazard. LAX/SCT was asking us for 20 MIT on the arrivals that we get in a non radar stack out over the ocean. Like youll literally have 10-15 arrivals just appear on top of each other, all showing ETA's for the airport within 5 mins of each other, all grumpy crews that flew all night. Ive personally filed numerous reports about the Crapshow the morning turnaround at LAX has been, and encourage any aircrew to do the same.
For a while, wed work our ass off to get everybody in trail for Over Ocean, and theyll call us as the first Qantas in a line of 15 arrivals is about 20 miles west of the airport, and say hey we need West Traffic right now.
It all boils down to an issue with LAWA wanting noise abatement until 630AM, regardless of traffic or weather. They cant launch departures into the 6's arrival stream when the fog comes in, but If whoever is in charge at the Tower is afraid to be responsible for flipping to West Traffic early, you get a crappy morning.
As to why ZOA is giving you the IRNMN, thats just the way the computer works. Until the deck gets dropped in the system for the ZUUMA, our automation is going to forcibly pref out the IRNMN for any LAX arrival. They cant jump the gun and start throwing people on the ZUUMA, just like i wouldn't randomly go in and change people to the WWAVS for SFO.
I havent worked overnight or early morning since all of this COVID started, so cant speak to exactly whats happening recently, but early morning at LAX is a known issue. Also keep in mind, its just one guy watching all of it at the time, and it can get stupid busy for a single controller fairly quickly.
