Planes overhead in WA9
St Helens, Merseyside. 1,293 of its 1,295 postcodes measured, the ones in St Helens (17 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 WA9. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
On a day it flies west, 70% of days
Up to 1
a day
Of its 1,293 postcodes:
- under 10
- 1,293
On a day it flies both ways, 10% of days
Up to 10
a day
Of its 1,293 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 51
- under 10
- 1,242
On a day it flies east, 20% of days
Up to 21
a day
Of its 1,293 postcodes:
- 10 to 99
- 1,286
- under 10
- 7
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WA9 1182 postcodes | 182 under 10 | 182 under 10 | 182 at 10 to 99 |
| WA9 2144 postcodes | 144 under 10 | 47 at 10 to 99 | 144 at 10 to 99 |
| WA9 3311 postcodes | 311 under 10 | 311 under 10 | 311 at 10 to 99 |
| WA9 4341 postcodes | 341 under 10 | 4 at 10 to 99 | 341 at 10 to 99 |
| WA9 5315 postcodes | 315 under 10 | 315 under 10 | 308 at 10 to 99 |
Over 614 of its postcodes, other flying passes too, from airfields, helicopters and airports we cannot check against official counts, so few planes from the airports we count does not mean a quiet sky there.
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 WA9
WA10 WA11 L35 WA12 WN4 WA3 WN5 WN3
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.