Planes overhead in SK2
Stockport, Greater Manchester. All 569 of its postcodes measured (30 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 SK2. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 70% of days
Up to 3
a day
Of its 569 postcodes:
- under 10
- 569
On a day it flies both ways, 10% of days
Up to 42
a day
Of its 569 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 21
- on an edge
- 26
- under 10
- 522
On a day it flies east, 20% of days
Up to 84
a day
Of its 569 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 31
- on an edge
- 32
- under 10
- 506
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SK2 5262 postcodes | 262 under 10 | 10 on an edge | 4 at 10 to 99 |
| SK2 6168 postcodes | 168 under 10 | 21 at 10 to 99 | 27 at 10 to 99 |
| SK2 7139 postcodes | 139 under 10 | 139 under 10 | 139 under 10 |
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 SK2
SK1 SK3 SK7 SK6 SK4 SK5 SK8 M19
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.