Staying on the topic of runway alignments. In your opinion, which airports around the world that you have operated to, have been designed with the worst alignments relative to prevailing winds. And which of those were for fair reasons, i.e. mountain in the way and which just appear to be bad planning (maybe to avoid flight paths over the wrong peoples' houses)?
Geography, and probably history, are the two major influences. It's a rare airport that isn't constrained by its geography in some way or other. History comes into play both in the historic alignment of runways, which tends not to change, and in the way local cities encroach upon their surrounds, and so constrain any future development.
Australia, in particular Sydney, is the worst place that I've ever seen for politics interfering with the aviation requirements. But, the caveat to that is that mostly I haven't seen what goes on elsewhere, so perhaps it's not the worst.
Hands down the worst place I've operated to with regard to crosswinds is Narita. It's also right up there for political interference. If you want some restful viewing, look up some of the landings there on youtube.
Australia wins for stupid, bordering on dangerous, use of out of wind and short runways, for political purposes. That's when they have an into wind runway, and don't want to use it, or send large long haul aircraft to short runways, when there's a nice big one right next to it.
The only time that I've ever had to divert due to crosswind was on a flight to London. We got down to about 200' before I gave it away, and went to Amsterdam. Only just got in by the skin of our teeth when we came back, as it was dry when we touched down (limit 35 knots), but wet by the time we finished the landing rollout (limit 27 knots). The x-wind was right up at 35.
