Planes overhead in B34
Birmingham, West Midlands. All 327 of its postcodes measured, 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 B34. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 38% of days
Up to 146
a day
Of its 327 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 81
- 10 to 99
- 22
- on an edge
- 62
- under 10
- 162
On a day it flies both ways, 24% of days
Up to 137
a day
Of its 327 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 18
- 10 to 99
- 58
- on an edge
- 75
- under 10
- 176
On a day it flies east, 38% of days
Up to 123
a day
Of its 327 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 11
- on an edge
- 51
- under 10
- 265
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| B34 6176 postcodes | 81 at 100+ | 18 at 100+ | 11 at 100+ |
| B34 7151 postcodes | 7 on an edge | 4 on an edge | 151 under 10 |
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 B34
B36 B33 B35 B37 B26 B24 B76 B23
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.