Planes overhead in M34
Tameside, Greater Manchester. All 1,243 of its postcodes measured (39 PO boxes and other large-user postcodes left out), January to August 2026.
From Manchester
Planes land and take off into the wind, so the weather decides which way Manchester flies, and that decides how many pass over M34. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 70% of days
Up to 278
a day
Of its 1,243 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 137
- 10 to 99
- 159
- on an edge
- 133
- under 10
- 814
On a day it flies both ways, 10% of days
Up to 171
a day
Of its 1,243 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 138
- 10 to 99
- 177
- on an edge
- 69
- under 10
- 859
On a day it flies east, 20% of days
Up to 86
a day
Of its 1,243 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 319
- on an edge
- 32
- under 10
- 892
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 west70% of days | Both ways10% of days | Flying east20% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| M34 2231 postcodes | 4 on an edge | 231 under 10 | 231 under 10 |
| M34 3266 postcodes | 4 at 10 to 99 | 5 at 10 to 99 | 4 at 10 to 99 |
| M34 5326 postcodes | 326 under 10 | 326 under 10 | 326 under 10 |
| M34 6159 postcodes | 101 at 10 to 99 | 118 at 10 to 99 | 54 at 10 to 99 |
| M34 7261 postcodes | 137 at 100+ | 138 at 100+ | 261 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 M34
SK16 SK5 OL7 SK14 OL6 M19 SK1 SK15
The councils
Where these figures come from
Counted from community flight tracking, checked against the CAA's monthly totals for Manchester. 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.