Heathrow aircraft noise: flight paths, runways and night flights

Two runways, two directions

Heathrow has two parallel runways running east to west, about 1.4 km apart: 09L/27R to the north and 09R/27L to the south. Planes land and take off into the wind, so all the traffic runs one way or the other.

When the wind is from the west, planes land towards the west over London (runway 27) and take off towards Windsor. That happened on 62% of days over the last year. When the wind is from the east, it all turns round: planes land towards the east over Windsor (runway 09) and take off over Hounslow and Twickenham. That happened on 26% of days. On the other 12%, the airport changed direction during the day.

Easterly days come in spells, and not only in winter. In the last year, April, July and January had the most, with around four days in ten each. That is why one visit to a house can mislead: a street under the westerly approach can have a quiet week, then weeks of planes every couple of minutes.

Where landing planes fly

Landing planes line up with the runway well before London's inner suburbs and descend on a straight line, so the same streets hear them at the same height every time.

Landing from the east (westerly days), the approach to the southern runway, 27L, passes over Putney, East and North Sheen, St Margarets and Hounslow. The approach to the northern runway, 27R, runs about 1.4 km further north, over Fulham, Chiswick, Kew, Isleworth and Heston. Heathrow alternates them: one runway takes landings from 06:00 until 15:00 and the other from 15:00 until the last departure, and the order swaps every week. So each street has planes all morning one week and all afternoon and evening the next, and each approach took about half of the westerly landings over the year.

Landing from the west (easterly days), nearly all planes use the northern runway, 09L: 95% over the last year. They pass over Fifield, Oakley Green, Clewer on the edge of Windsor, Datchet and Horton. This goes back to the Cranford agreement, which kept easterly landings off the southern runway. The government ended it in 2009, but the restriction stays until the works that allow both runways to be used are built, so for now there is no alternation on easterly days.

At 10 km out, over Kew or North Sheen, a landing plane is typically about 1,800 ft up. A large jet at that height is loud well to either side of the line, so a house 1 km off the centre line still hears every one.

Where take-offs go

Take-offs climb much faster than landings descend, and they turn onto set routes soon after leaving the runway, so they spread over a wider area at greater heights.

On westerly days, planes take off towards Windsor. About two-thirds carry on west past Windsor, and most of the rest turn south over Egham and Thorpe. On easterly days they take off over Hounslow and split three ways: south-east towards Twickenham and Hampton Hill, north-east towards Hanwell and Ealing, and on to the east.

Night flights and quiet hours

Heathrow's night rules are set by the Department for Transport. The strictest part of the night runs from 23:30 to 06:00, with a limit of 5,800 flights a year in that period (2,550 in winter and 3,250 in summer) under the rules that run from October 2025 to October 2028. On top of that, Heathrow schedules no departures between 23:00 and 06:00, and flights scheduled for the early morning may not land before 04:30. Heathrow says about 80% of its night flights land between 04:30 and 06:00, about 16 a day. At night it also rotates which runways it uses over a four-week cycle.

Our recordings match the rules. A typical night has no landings or take-offs at all from about 23:30 to 04:35. Counting the wider night from 23:00 to 07:00, 78 planes landed or took off on an average night over the last year, and 112 on the busiest. Most of those come in the last hour: between 06:00 and 07:00 there are about sixty, almost as many as in a busy daytime hour.

Busy days and quiet days

Heathrow is limited to 480,000 flights a year and runs close to it: 477,894 in 2025, about 1,310 a day. Our count from recorded flights is a little lower, about 1,280 a day, because a small share of flights are not captured. The number hardly changes through the year: 1,218 a day on average in January and 1,315 in August, with Saturdays the quietest day of the week.

What changes from day to day is not how many planes there are but where they go. For most homes near Heathrow, the runway direction and the time of day decide whether it is a loud day.

The third runway and new flight paths

The government backed a third runway in January 2025 and in November 2025 chose Heathrow's own plan: a 3,500 m runway north-west of the airport, allowing up to 276,000 more flights a year. A draft national policy statement for the expansion was open for comments until 1 September 2026. Among other things, it proposes a ban on scheduled night flights for six and a half hours of the night, keeping runway alternation, and noise insulation for homes most affected. Heathrow's own consultation on its detailed plans runs from 27 October to 22 December 2026, with planning permission targeted for 2029 and the runway opening in the mid-2030s.

Separately, London's airspace is being redesigned by the new UK Airspace Design Service, run by NATS. No dates have been set for new Heathrow flight paths. Both could change which areas hear planes, so if you are buying near Heathrow, check where the published proposals put the runway and the routes.

Complaints, insulation and help

To complain, use Heathrow's online form, email noise@heathrow.com or call 0800 344844. Heathrow aims to reply within five working days. If you are not satisfied, the Civil Aviation Authority takes aircraft noise complaints once the airport has had the chance to answer.

To check a flight, Heathrow's WebTrak shows recent flights with their heights and readings from its noise monitors.

For help with insulation, Heathrow's Quieter Neighbourhood Support, part of its 2024–2028 noise action plan, has replaced its older schemes:

• Residential Insulation Scheme: up to 100% of the cost of approved work, up to £34,000 a home, for about 20,000 homes most affected by day and night noise. The first phase runs from 2025 to 2028 and covers windows and doors or secondary glazing, acoustic ventilation, and loft and ceiling insulation.
• Home Relocation Assistance: a contribution to moving costs for homes inside the airport's loudest noise contour.
• Quieter Schools Programme: insulation, cooling and ventilation for schools and community buildings.
• Vortex scheme: repairs to roof tiles disturbed by the wake of landing planes, and protection in high-risk areas.

Heathrow's site explains who qualifies for each, and the scheme team answers at communityschemes@heathrow.com.