Planes overhead in B73
Birmingham, West Midlands. All 475 of its postcodes measured (65 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 B73. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 38% of days
Up to 3
a day
Of its 475 postcodes:
- under 10
- 475
On a day it flies both ways, 24% of days
Up to 71
a day
Of its 475 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 144
- on an edge
- 106
- under 10
- 225
On a day it flies east, 38% of days
Up to 121
a day
Of its 475 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 133
- on an edge
- 117
- under 10
- 225
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| B73 5242 postcodes | 242 under 10 | 70 at 10 to 99 | 66 at 100+ |
| B73 6233 postcodes | 233 under 10 | 74 at 10 to 99 | 67 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 B73
B23 B44 B76 B24 B74 B75 B35 B20
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.