Planes overhead in BS31
Bath and North East Somerset, South Gloucestershire and City of Bristol, Bristol. All 673 of its postcodes measured (14 PO boxes and other large-user postcodes left out), January to August 2026.
From Bristol
Planes land and take off into the wind, so the weather decides which way Bristol flies, and that decides how many pass over BS31. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 54% of days
Up to 105
a day
Of its 673 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 3
- 10 to 99
- 172
- on an edge
- 2
- under 10
- 496
On a day it flies both ways, 21% of days
Up to 106
a day
Of its 673 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 1
- 10 to 99
- 672
On a day it flies east, 25% of days
Up to 85
a day
Of its 673 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 607
- under 10
- 66
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 west54% of days | Both ways21% of days | Flying east25% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| BS31 1269 postcodes | 40 at 10 to 99 | 269 at 10 to 99 | 269 at 10 to 99 |
| BS31 2286 postcodes | 3 at 100+ | 1 at 100+ | 279 at 10 to 99 |
| BS31 3118 postcodes | 118 at 10 to 99 | 118 at 10 to 99 | 59 at 10 to 99 |
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.
1 of its postcodes have a position ONS estimates, so their figures may be for a spot a few hundred metres away.
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 BS31
BS30 BS14 BS15 BS4 BS5 BS16 BA2 BA1
The councils
- Bath and North East Somerset: noise and liveability score
- South Gloucestershire: noise and liveability score
- City of Bristol: noise and liveability score
Where these figures come from
Counted from community flight tracking, checked against the CAA's monthly totals for Bristol. 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.