Planes overhead in SW14
Richmond upon Thames, London. All 366 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 SW14. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
- On a day it flies west (56% of days): up to 318 a day; of its 366 postcodes, 276 at 100+, 62 on an edge, 28 under 10
- On a day it flies both ways (15% of days): up to 190 a day; of its 366 postcodes, 276 at 100+, 62 on an edge, 28 under 10
- On a day it flies east (29% of days): up to 2 a day; of its 366 postcodes, 366 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SW14 7169 postcodes | 124 at 100+28 on an edge17 under 10 | 124 at 100+28 on an edge17 under 10 | 169 under 10 |
| SW14 8187 postcodes | 152 at 100+24 on an edge11 under 10 | 152 at 100+24 on an edge11 under 10 | 187 under 10 |
| SW14 910 postcodes | 10 on an edge | 10 on an edge | 10 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 SW14
TW9 SW13 SW15 W4 TW10 TW8 W6 TW1
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.