Planes overhead in SW13
Richmond upon Thames, London. All 373 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 SW13. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
- On a day it flies west (56% of days): up to 318 a day; of its 373 postcodes, 198 at 100+, 148 on an edge, 27 under 10
- On a day it flies both ways (15% of days): up to 190 a day; of its 373 postcodes, 198 at 100+, 143 on an edge, 32 under 10
- On a day it flies east (29% of days): up to 4 a day; of its 373 postcodes, 373 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SW13 0148 postcodes | 70 at 100+78 on an edge | 70 at 100+78 on an edge | 148 under 10 |
| SW13 37 postcodes | 7 on an edge | 7 on an edge | 7 under 10 |
| SW13 848 postcodes | 15 at 100+29 on an edge4 under 10 | 15 at 100+28 on an edge5 under 10 | 48 under 10 |
| SW13 9170 postcodes | 113 at 100+34 on an edge23 under 10 | 113 at 100+30 on an edge27 under 10 | 170 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 SW13
SW14 W6 W4 SW15 SW6 W14 TW9 W12
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.