Planes overhead in BS49
North Somerset, Bristol. All 342 of its postcodes measured (4 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 BS49. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 54% of days
Up to 106
a day
Of its 342 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 64
- 10 to 99
- 52
- on an edge
- 50
- under 10
- 176
On a day it flies both ways, 21% of days
Up to 105
a day
Of its 342 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 22
- 10 to 99
- 84
- on an edge
- 41
- under 10
- 195
On a day it flies east, 25% of days
Up to 97
a day
Of its 342 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 10
- on an edge
- 29
- under 10
- 303
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| BS49 4237 postcodes | 47 at 100+ | 13 at 100+ | 4 at 10 to 99 |
| BS49 5105 postcodes | 17 at 100+ | 9 at 100+ | 6 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.
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 BS49
BS21 BS29 BS22 BS40 BS24 BS20 BS41 BS23
The councils
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.