Planes overhead in B33
Birmingham, West Midlands. All 666 of its postcodes measured (24 PO boxes and other large-user postcodes left out), January to August 2026.
From Birmingham
Planes land and take off into the wind, so the weather decides which way Birmingham flies, and that decides how many pass over B33. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 38% of days
Up to 147
a day
Of its 666 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 99
- on an edge
- 202
- under 10
- 365
On a day it flies both ways, 24% of days
Up to 138
a day
Of its 666 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 3
- 10 to 99
- 45
- on an edge
- 228
- under 10
- 390
On a day it flies east, 38% of days
Up to 123
a day
Of its 666 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 3
- on an edge
- 95
- under 10
- 568
Each sector's bar splits its postcodes by how many planes pass over them a day; the figure above it counts those in the busiest band the sector reaches. The list above gives the whole district's counts.
| Sector | Flying west38% of days | Both ways24% of days | Flying east38% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| B33 0229 postcodes | 38 at 100+ | 12 at 10 to 99 | 42 on an edge |
| B33 8212 postcodes | 18 on an edge | 12 on an edge | 212 under 10 |
| B33 9225 postcodes | 61 at 100+ | 3 at 100+ | 3 at 100+ |
On an edge: the postcode is on the edge of a flight path, where a few metres decide whether a plane counts as overhead, and the fewest and the most within 100 m of it fall in different bands.
What counts as overhead
Overhead means more than halfway up the sky (48.5 degrees or more) and below 7,000 ft, the CAA's definition of an overflight (CAP 1498). A day counts as one way when 80% of its flights used that way. PO boxes and other postcodes for organisations that receive a lot of post are left out: they sit at a delivery office or a business, not at homes.
Near B33
B34 B26 B36 B37 B35 B92 B24 B11
The councils
Where these figures come from
Counted from community flight tracking, checked against the CAA's monthly totals for Birmingham. Flight tracks: adsb.lol (ODbL 1.0); Weather at each airport: Iowa Environmental Mesonet; Ground heights: Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right; Postcode positions: ONS National Statistics Postcode Lookup (OGL). Licence: Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0.