Planes overhead in BS40
North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol. 684 of its 712 postcodes measured, the ones in North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset (8 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 BS40. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 54% of days
Up to 107
a day
Of its 684 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 7
- 10 to 99
- 109
- on an edge
- 30
- under 10
- 538
On a day it flies both ways, 21% of days
Up to 117
a day
Of its 684 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 3
- 10 to 99
- 92
- on an edge
- 47
- under 10
- 542
On a day it flies east, 25% of days
Up to 100
a day
Of its 684 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 13
- 10 to 99
- 37
- on an edge
- 16
- under 10
- 618
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| BS40 5218 postcodes | 4 at 100+ | 3 at 10 to 99 | 4 on an edge |
| BS40 6122 postcodes | 103 at 10 to 99 | 76 at 10 to 99 | 122 under 10 |
| BS40 793 postcodes | 6 at 10 to 99 | 93 under 10 | 93 under 10 |
| BS40 8213 postcodes | 3 at 100+ | 3 at 100+ | 11 at 100+ |
| BS40 938 postcodes | 7 on an edge | 16 on an edge | 2 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.
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 BS40
BS41 BS49 BS39 BS14 BS8 BS4 BS29 BS21
The councils
- North Somerset: noise and liveability score
- Bath and North East Somerset: 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.