Planes overhead in LS21
Leeds and Bradford, West Yorkshire. 493 of its 621 postcodes measured, the ones in Leeds and Bradford (30 PO boxes and other large-user postcodes left out), January to August 2026.
From Leeds Bradford
Planes land and take off into the wind, so the weather decides which way Leeds Bradford flies, and that decides how many pass over LS21. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 47% of days
Up to 55
a day
Of its 493 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 27
- on an edge
- 11
- under 10
- 455
On a day it flies both ways, 26% of days
Up to 49
a day
Of its 493 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 26
- on an edge
- 9
- under 10
- 458
On a day it flies east, 27% of days
Up to 41
a day
Of its 493 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 12
- on an edge
- 19
- under 10
- 462
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 west47% of days | Both ways26% of days | Flying east27% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| LS21 1244 postcodes | 1 on an edge | 1 on an edge | 1 on an edge |
| LS21 296 postcodes | 96 under 10 | 96 under 10 | 96 under 10 |
| LS21 3153 postcodes | 27 at 10 to 99 | 26 at 10 to 99 | 12 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 LS21
LS20 LS19 LS16 LS18 LS29 BD17 LS5 BD18
The councils
Where these figures come from
Counted from community flight tracking, checked against the CAA's monthly totals for Leeds Bradford. 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.