Planes overhead in M90
Manchester, Greater Manchester. All 82 of its postcodes measured, 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 M90. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
- On a day it flies west (70% of days): up to 3 a day; of its 82 postcodes, 82 under 10
- On a day it flies both ways (10% of days): up to 2 a day; of its 82 postcodes, 82 under 10
- On a day it flies east (20% of days): up to 14 a day; of its 82 postcodes, 1 on an edge, 81 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 west70% of days | Both ways10% of days | Flying east20% of days |
|---|---|---|---|
| M90 16 postcodes | 6 under 10 | 6 under 10 | 1 on an edge5 under 10 |
| M90 27 postcodes | 7 under 10 | 7 under 10 | 7 under 10 |
| M90 324 postcodes | 24 under 10 | 24 under 10 | 24 under 10 |
| M90 417 postcodes | 17 under 10 | 17 under 10 | 17 under 10 |
| M90 528 postcodes | 28 under 10 | 28 under 10 | 28 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 M90
M22 WA15 M23 SK8 WA14 M33 M20 SK3
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.