Planes overhead in SW6
Hammersmith and Fulham, London. All 1,506 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 SW6. Across its postcodes, January to August 2026:
- On a day it flies west (56% of days): up to 619 a day; of its 1,506 postcodes, 1,429 at 100+, 74 on an edge, 3 under 10
- On a day it flies both ways (15% of days): up to 350 a day; of its 1,506 postcodes, 1,429 at 100+, 67 on an edge, 10 under 10
- On a day it flies east (29% of days): up to 5 a day; of its 1,506 postcodes, 1,506 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SW6 1201 postcodes | 130 at 100+68 on an edge3 under 10 | 130 at 100+61 on an edge10 under 10 | 201 under 10 |
| SW6 2318 postcodes | 318 at 100+ | 318 at 100+ | 318 under 10 |
| SW6 3197 postcodes | 197 at 100+ | 197 at 100+ | 197 under 10 |
| SW6 4194 postcodes | 194 at 100+ | 194 at 100+ | 194 under 10 |
| SW6 5146 postcodes | 146 at 100+ | 146 at 100+ | 146 under 10 |
| SW6 6209 postcodes | 209 at 100+ | 209 at 100+ | 209 under 10 |
| SW6 7214 postcodes | 208 at 100+6 on an edge | 208 at 100+6 on an edge | 214 under 10 |
| SW6 927 postcodes | 27 at 100+ | 27 at 100+ | 27 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 SW6
SW10 SW5 W14 W6 SW11 SW3 SW18 SW15
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.