Planes overhead in UB2
Ealing, Hounslow and Hillingdon, London. All 519 of its postcodes measured (13 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 Ealing and the planes over Hounslow, 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 UB2. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 56% of days
Up to 2
a day
Of its 519 postcodes:
- under 10
- 519
On a day it flies both ways, 15% of days
Up to 80
a day
Of its 519 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 56
- on an edge
- 67
- under 10
- 396
On a day it flies east, 29% of days
Up to 188
a day
Of its 519 postcodes:
- 100 or more
- 32
- 10 to 99
- 10
- on an edge
- 128
- under 10
- 349
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UB2 4261 postcodes | 261 under 10 | 50 at 10 to 99 | 28 at 100+ |
| UB2 5258 postcodes | 258 under 10 | 6 at 10 to 99 | 4 at 100+ |
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.
1 of its postcodes have a position ONS estimates, so their figures may be for a spot a few hundred metres away.
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 UB2
UB1 TW5 W7 TW3 TW4 TW7 W13 UB6
The councils
- Ealing: noise and liveability score
- Hounslow: noise and liveability score
- Hillingdon: noise and liveability score
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.