Planes overhead in SW18
Wandsworth and Merton, London. All 1,200 of its postcodes measured (42 PO boxes and other large-user postcodes left out), January to August 2026.
For Heathrow's expansion consultation, open until 22 December 2026: the planes over Wandsworth, council by council.
From Heathrow
Planes land and take off into the wind, so the weather decides which way Heathrow flies, and that decides how many pass over SW18. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 56% of days
Up to 318
a day
Of its 1,200 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 193
- on an edge
- 175
- under 10
- 832
On a day it flies both ways, 15% of days
Up to 189
a day
Of its 1,200 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 193
- 10 to 99
- 57
- on an edge
- 171
- under 10
- 779
On a day it flies east, 29% of days
Up to 43
a day
Of its 1,200 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 223
- under 10
- 977
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 west56% of days | Both ways15% of days | Flying east29% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| SW18 1320 postcodes | 180 at 100+ | 180 at 100+ | 320 under 10 |
| SW18 2194 postcodes | 13 at 100+ | 13 at 100+ | 194 under 10 |
| SW18 3208 postcodes | 208 under 10 | 26 at 10 to 99 | 72 at 10 to 99 |
| SW18 4239 postcodes | 28 on an edge | 25 at 10 to 99 | 88 at 10 to 99 |
| SW18 5218 postcodes | 218 under 10 | 6 at 10 to 99 | 63 at 10 to 99 |
| SW18 921 postcodes | 21 on an edge | 21 on an edge | 21 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 SW18
SW15 SW11 SW6 SW17 SW12 SW19 SW10 SW4
The councils
Where these figures come from
Counted from community flight tracking, checked against the CAA's monthly totals for Heathrow. 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.