Planes overhead in SK15

Tameside, Greater Manchester. All 660 of its postcodes measured (11 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 SK15. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:

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.

Planes overhead from Manchester in SK15, by postcode sector and the way Manchester flies
SectorFlying west70% of daysBoth ways10% of daysFlying east20% of days
SK15 1224 postcodes220 at 10 to 99220 at 10 to 99224 under 10
SK15 2216 postcodes55 at 100+5 at 100+71 at 10 to 99
SK15 3220 postcodes6 at 100+1 at 100+8 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 SK15

OL6 SK16 OL5 SK14 OL7 M34 OL8 OL4

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.

How the planes are counted