Viewing a house near an airport? Check the runway before you go

Planes take off and land into the wind, and when the wind turns, the whole airport turns with it. A street under the landing path one day can be almost silent the next. So the day you view decides what you hear, and with a little planning you can choose it.

Our Kew Green sample, 10 km from Heathrow, shows the size of the gap: 92 loud landings a day with westerly winds, and 4 loud flights a day with easterly winds. View it on an easterly day and you would hear almost nothing. For why the wind has this effect, see why flight paths change with the wind.

Work out which direction is loud for this house

Before you look at any forecast, find out which wind sends planes over the house. Draw the runway's centre line out from both ends on a map and see which side of the airport the house is on, and whether it sits under the landing line or the take-off routes.

A wind "from the west" is a westerly wind. Planes land into it, so they arrive from the east and leave to the west. For a runway running north and south, read north and south for east and west.

Find the runway in use today

On the day, check what the airport is actually doing. The wind forecast tells you what should happen; these tell you what is happening.

• Official updates. Heathrow posts its direction live on X as @HeathrowRunways. At Schiphol, the air traffic control service shows the runways in use, updated every five minutes. At Frankfurt, the Umwelt- und Nachbarschaftshaus (Environment and Neighbourhood House) shows the current operating direction in real time.
• A flight tracker. On WebTrak, or any live flight tracker, look at the arriving planes over the last half hour and see which end of the runway they are lining up from. Live views run a little behind: 3 minutes on the Australian airports' WebTrak, about 21 minutes at the New York airports.

Check the forecast before you book

Look at the wind forecast for the airport, not for the house, and look at the direction the wind blows from.

• A steady wind from the side you need is the best sign. If the forecast shows it all day, the airport will very likely operate that way.
• Light winds are unreliable. At Heathrow, when the wind is below 5 knots (about 6 mph), planes can land in either direction. During the day, Heathrow also keeps landing towards the west in light easterly winds, a government policy called the westerly preference. So if the house is under the western approach, a gentle easterly breeze is not enough.
• Look for a local forecast. Heathrow says it cannot tell in advance which way it will operate, because that depends on the wind. Frankfurt is different: the Umwelt- und Nachbarschaftshaus publishes a forecast of the operating direction five days ahead, in three blocks a day, and says it is highly accurate for the first three days.

Book a viewing slot you can move at short notice, and tell the agent why.

Pick the day and the hour

Even on the right day, traffic comes in waves. At Heathrow, measured over the last year:

• Before 06:00 there are few flights, but they are the ones that wake people. Early arrivals may land from 04:30, and about 16 planes a day land between 04:30 and 06:00.
• From 06:00 traffic jumps from about 9 landings and take-offs an hour to nearly 60, and from 07:00 until 22:00 it stays between about 68 and 83 an hour. The busiest hours are 17:00 to 19:00.
• Days of the week and months make little difference. Saturday is the quietest day, and August has about 8% more flights than January.

Airports that alternate their runways add a second question: which half of the day your approach is in use. On westerly days at Heathrow, one runway takes landings from 06:00 until 15:00 and the other from 15:00 until the last departure, and the order swaps each week. Heathrow publishes a schedule showing which runway it uses on any day or night of the year.

So a house under Heathrow's northern approach can be busy all morning one week and quiet until mid-afternoon the next. Check the schedule and view in your runway's half. Our guide to runway alternation explains how it works at other airports.

What to listen for outside and inside

Give the planes 15 minutes of your attention, outside and in.

Outside, in the garden and the street:

• Count the planes, and time how long each one is loud.
• Notice whether you would have to stop talking while one passes. That is roughly 65 dB, the level we count as loud.
• See how high they are in the sky. A plane you have to tilt your head right back to see is close to overhead.

Inside:

• Stand in each bedroom with the windows shut, then open. In summer you may want them open at night.
• Listen in rooms directly under the roof. Loft rooms and top-floor bedrooms often have less between you and the sky.
• Look for what previous owners did: secondary glazing, sealed windows, acoustic vents, heavy curtains. They show the noise mattered to someone.

Book a second viewing in the other direction

If your first viewing fell on a quiet day, it told you little. Ask for a second one when the wind turns and the planes come your way; on the loud day, you will know within minutes whether you can live with it.

If the first viewing was loud, a second one on a quiet day is still worth it. It shows you the respite, and how often it comes is part of the answer: at Heathrow, planes landed towards the west on 62% of days over the last year and towards the east on 26%.

If you cannot go back, replay a real day in each direction on our free flight map and tap the street to see how many loud planes it heard. For the full list of checks before you buy, see how to check aircraft noise before buying a house.