Planes overhead in SK8
Stockport, Greater Manchester. 1,270 of its 1,275 postcodes measured, the ones in Stockport (53 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 SK8. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 70% of days
Up to 280
a day
Of its 1,270 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 47
- on an edge
- 166
- under 10
- 1,057
On a day it flies both ways, 10% of days
Up to 260
a day
Of its 1,270 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 96
- 10 to 99
- 536
- on an edge
- 245
- under 10
- 393
On a day it flies east, 20% of days
Up to 273
a day
Of its 1,270 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 259
- 10 to 99
- 510
- on an edge
- 171
- under 10
- 330
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SK8 1155 postcodes | 8 at 100+ | 11 at 100+ | 43 at 100+ |
| SK8 2142 postcodes | 33 at 100+ | 33 at 100+ | 92 at 100+ |
| SK8 3265 postcodes | 5 at 100+ | 50 at 100+ | 62 at 100+ |
| SK8 4183 postcodes | 5 on an edge | 1 at 100+ | 3 at 100+ |
| SK8 5172 postcodes | 1 at 100+ | 1 at 100+ | 38 at 100+ |
| SK8 6182 postcodes | 182 under 10 | 131 at 10 to 99 | 21 at 100+ |
| SK8 7171 postcodes | 171 under 10 | 170 at 10 to 99 | 171 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 SK8
SK3 M22 SK7 SK4 M90 SK1 M20 SK2
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.