Planes overhead in SK5
Stockport and Tameside, Greater Manchester. All 603 of its postcodes measured (14 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 SK5. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 70% of days
Up to 279
a day
Of its 603 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 45
- 10 to 99
- 89
- on an edge
- 78
- under 10
- 391
On a day it flies both ways, 10% of days
Up to 173
a day
Of its 603 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 45
- 10 to 99
- 54
- on an edge
- 80
- under 10
- 424
On a day it flies east, 20% of days
Up to 89
a day
Of its 603 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 129
- on an edge
- 54
- under 10
- 420
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SK5 6273 postcodes | 273 under 10 | 273 under 10 | 273 under 10 |
| SK5 7184 postcodes | 34 at 10 to 99 | 11 at 10 to 99 | 15 at 10 to 99 |
| SK5 8146 postcodes | 45 at 100+ | 45 at 100+ | 114 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 SK5
SK4 M19 SK1 M34 SK3 SK2 M14 M20
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.