Planes overhead in BS40
North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol. 692 of its 720 postcodes measured, the ones in North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset, January to August 2026.
From Bristol
Planes land and take off into the wind, so the weather decides which way Bristol flies, and that decides how many pass over BS40. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
- On a day it flies west (54% of days): up to 107 a day; of its 692 postcodes, 7 at 100+, 110 at 10 to 99, 30 on an edge, 545 under 10
- On a day it flies both ways (21% of days): up to 117 a day; of its 692 postcodes, 3 at 100+, 93 at 10 to 99, 47 on an edge, 549 under 10
- On a day it flies east (25% of days): up to 100 a day; of its 692 postcodes, 13 at 100+, 37 at 10 to 99, 16 on an edge, 626 under 10
The table counts the postcodes of each sector by how many planes pass over them a day: 100 or more, 10 to 99, or under 10.
| Sector | Flying west54% of days | Both ways21% of days | Flying east25% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| BS40 5222 postcodes | 4 at 100+1 on an edge217 under 10 | 3 at 10 to 992 on an edge217 under 10 | 4 on an edge218 under 10 |
| BS40 6123 postcodes | 104 at 10 to 9919 under 10 | 77 at 10 to 9946 under 10 | 123 under 10 |
| BS40 794 postcodes | 6 at 10 to 9988 under 10 | 94 under 10 | 94 under 10 |
| BS40 8215 postcodes | 3 at 100+22 on an edge190 under 10 | 3 at 100+13 at 10 to 9929 on an edge170 under 10 | 11 at 100+32 at 10 to 992 on an edge170 under 10 |
| BS40 938 postcodes | 7 on an edge31 under 10 | 16 on an edge22 under 10 | 2 at 100+5 at 10 to 9910 on an edge21 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.
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.
Near BS40
BS41 BS49 BS39 BS14 BS8 BS4 BS29 BS21
The councils
- North Somerset: noise and liveability score
- Bath and North East Somerset: noise and liveability score
Where these figures come from
Counted from community flight tracking, checked against the CAA's monthly totals for Bristol. 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.