Planes overhead in CR7
Croydon and Merton, London. All 609 of its postcodes measured, January to August 2026.
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 CR7. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
- On a day it flies west (56% of days): up to 151 a day; of its 609 postcodes, 127 at 100+, 482 at 10 to 99
- On a day it flies both ways (15% of days): up to 93 a day; of its 609 postcodes, 609 at 10 to 99
- On a day it flies east (29% of days): up to 113 a day; of its 609 postcodes, 44 at 100+, 519 at 10 to 99, 22 on an edge, 24 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 west56% of days | Both ways15% of days | Flying east29% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| CR7 6126 postcodes | 33 at 100+93 at 10 to 99 | 126 at 10 to 99 | 103 at 10 to 9916 on an edge7 under 10 |
| CR7 7220 postcodes | 79 at 100+141 at 10 to 99 | 220 at 10 to 99 | 204 at 10 to 996 on an edge10 under 10 |
| CR7 8257 postcodes | 9 at 100+248 at 10 to 99 | 257 at 10 to 99 | 44 at 100+212 at 10 to 991 under 10 |
| CR7 96 postcodes | 6 at 100+ | 6 at 10 to 99 | 6 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.
Near CR7
SE25 SE19 SW16 SE27 CR0 SE20 CR4 SE21
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.