Which areas around Gatwick are quietest for aircraft noise?

Places off the east-west runway axis. Reigate and much of the North Downs to the north, and East Grinstead and the towns south of Crawley, sit clear of the low-altitude corridor and mainly hear dispersed traffic at height. The loudest band runs along the extended centreline — Edenbridge, Lingfield, Dormansland and Smallfield to the east, and Charlwood, Hookwood and Capel to the west — plus Horley right by the runway. Drop a pin on the map above to check any specific address.

What does 'westerly operations' at Gatwick mean?

It means aircraft take off and land facing west into the prevailing south-westerly wind — the case roughly 74% of the time. On westerly days, arrivals descend from the east over Edenbridge, Lingfield and Smallfield before crossing Horley on short final, while departures climb west over Charlwood and Rusper. On easterly days (~26%) the flow reverses: arrivals come in over Capel and Charlwood, departures climb east over Smallfield and Copthorne.

Why are planes so low over Lingfield and Dormansland?

Both villages sit under the instrument approach to runway 26L, the line arrivals follow from the east on westerly days. Aircraft are established on a continuous descent by that point, typically passing at a few thousand feet in a steady stream when Gatwick is busy. Because roughly three-quarters of the year is westerly, this is one of the most consistently overflown stretches in the Gatwick area.

Is Horley affected by Gatwick aircraft noise?

Yes — Horley sits immediately north of the airport, so aircraft on short final and initial climb pass close by whichever direction the runway is operating. It also picks up ground noise from taxiing and engine runs. Exposure varies street by street across the town; use the pin-drop tool on the map above to see the picture at your exact address.

Will Gatwick's Northern Runway make noise worse?

The Government approved the Northern Runway plan in September 2025, allowing the standby runway's centreline to be shifted 12 m north so it can be used routinely for departures alongside the main runway. The High Court dismissed legal challenges from local campaign groups in June 2026, though an appeal remains possible. More movements generally mean more overflight along the same east-west corridor; the project's conditions include noise controls, and local groups GACC and CAGNE continue to contest the impact.

How do I complain about aircraft noise from Gatwick?

Noise enquiries and complaints go to the London Gatwick Airspace Office — via the noise enquiry form on gatwickairport.com or the automated line on 07700 144 827. Including the date, time and your postcode helps the airport match your report to a specific flight. Community groups GACC and CAGNE also log and campaign on noise issues across Sussex, Surrey and Kent.

Is Crawley loud from Gatwick planes?

It depends on the neighbourhood. Crawley is the airport's home town, but the runway corridor runs east-west just north of it, so the town centre and southern neighbourhoods sit outside the loudest band. Langley Green and Northgate, on the northern edge, get climb-out and ground noise. The heatmap above shows the gradient clearly — drop a pin on your street to compare.

Does this map show all aircraft at Gatwick?

Effectively yes for the traffic that matters — Gatwick is almost entirely scheduled commercial jets, which carry ADS-B transponders, so the heatmap and route-density layers reflect real traffic accurately. Light general-aviation aircraft from nearby airfields such as Redhill may be under-represented, but they are a small share of the noise around the airport.

Gatwick Flight Path Noise Map – London Gatwick Airport (LGW)

Name: Aircraft noise observations near London Gatwick Airport
Creator: Flight Path Noise
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Aircraft noise around Gatwick in October 2026

Loudest neighborhoods near Gatwick: Horley, Charlwood, Hookwood / Povey Cross, Smallfield, Lingfield. Quietest: Reigate, East Grinstead. Busiest around 2 PM local time averaging 975 flights/day. Source: Flight Path Noise monitoring data, 30 days to 2026-10-08.

Flights by hour · last 30 days

12a6a12p6p

Average daily traffic

975

flights / day · 29,259 total

Busiest hour

2 PM

peak 95 dB

Loudest hour

2 PM

peak 95 dB

Loudest residential area

Charlwood

68 dB avg · ~795 flights/day · Busy road

Village sitting almost on the western extended centreline — westerly departures and easterly arrivals pass directly overhead at low altitude

Does Gatwick Airport have a curfew?

Partial — no ban on night flying, but a mandatory night-quota regime applies 11:30 PM – 6 AM, and the loudest jets are banned 11 PM – 7 AM.

Gatwick has no outright curfew — aircraft can and do fly at any hour. What it has instead is a mandatory, government-set night regime. During the night quota period of 11:30 PM to 6 AM, movements are capped seasonally at 11,200 movements and 5,150 quota points in summer and 3,250 movements and 1,785 quota points in winter, under the Quota Count (QC) system that scores each aircraft type by its certified noise. Across the wider night period of 11 PM to 7 AM the noisiest categories (QC/8 and QC/16) may not operate at all, and QC/4 aircraft may not be scheduled during the quota period. These limits are set by the Department for Transport — the current regime was confirmed from October 2025 — and they are binding on the airport, but they do not stop quieter modern jets flying through the small hours. Residents under the approach in Lingfield or Smallfield, or under climb-out in Charlwood and Rusper, can hear traffic at any time of night.

London Gatwick (LGW/EGKK) is Europe’s busiest single-runway airport — and by most definitions the busiest in the world — which concentrates every arrival and departure onto one east-west corridor over the Sussex, Surrey and Kent countryside. There is no outright night curfew: communities from Lingfield to Rusper hear aircraft through the small hours under a mandatory seasonal quota regime rather than a ban. Roughly three-quarters of the time the airport operates westerly, streaming arrivals over a line of Kent and Surrey villages before they cross Smallfield and Horley on final. And the story is changing — the Government approved the Northern Runway plan in September 2025, clearing the standby runway for routine use, a decision upheld by the High Court in June 2026 and fiercely contested by local groups CAGNE and GACC.

Which neighborhoods are quietest — and which aren’t

Gatwick’s geometry is unusually simple. One main runway (08R/26L, 3,316 m) handles effectively all movements, oriented roughly east-west. The northern standby runway (08L/26R, 2,565 m) sits just 200 m away — too close for simultaneous use today — and normally serves as a taxiway. That single axis means noise exposure is almost entirely a function of where you sit relative to one line on the map.

Area	Aircraft noise	Why
Horley	✈︎✈︎✈︎	Immediately north; short final and initial climb in both directions
Charlwood	✈︎✈︎✈︎	Almost on the western extended centreline; low overflight
Hookwood / Povey Cross	✈︎✈︎✈︎	Closest settlements to the western runway end
Smallfield	✈︎✈︎✈︎	Under the eastern approach corridor
Lingfield	✈︎✈︎✈︎	Directly under the westerly-arrival ILS line
Crawley	✈︎✈︎	Northern neighbourhoods get climb-out; centre sits south of corridor
Rusper	✈︎✈︎	Under westerly departure swathes, including early mornings
Copthorne	✈︎✈︎	Inside the eastern arrival/departure swathe
Capel	✈︎✈︎	Overflown by easterly arrivals (~26% of the year)
Dormansland	✈︎✈︎	Just south of the eastern arrival line
Edenbridge	✈︎✈︎	Under the long final for 26L at moderate altitude
Horsham	✈︎✈︎	Wider westerly departure routings; intermittent
Reigate	✈︎	North of the corridor; higher, vectored traffic only
East Grinstead	✈︎	South of the centreline; dispersed traffic at altitude

The loudest real estate is the extended centreline itself: the village chain from Edenbridge through Lingfield, Dormansland and Smallfield to the east, and Charlwood, Hookwood and Capel to the west, plus Horley sitting right against the northern airport boundary. Move a few kilometres off that axis — Reigate to the north, East Grinstead or southern Crawley to the south — and low overflight gives way to higher, more dispersed traffic. If you’re weighing up an address anywhere in this band, drop a pin on the map above to see flights per day and noise levels for that exact spot.

Flight patterns and runway use

Direction is set by the wind, and in this corner of England the wind is usually from the south-west. About 74% of movements are westerly — aircraft take off and land facing west. On westerly days, arrivals descend from the east along the extended centreline over Edenbridge, Lingfield, Dormansland and Smallfield, crossing Horley on short final, while departures climb west over Charlwood and Rusper and fan out toward Horsham on Noise Preferential Routes (NPRs) set by the Department for Transport.

In easterly operations (~26% of the year) the flow reverses: arrivals approach from the west over Capel and Charlwood, and departures climb east over Smallfield and Copthorne. NPRs constrain departures below roughly 3,000–4,000 ft; above that, aircraft disperse onto their airways routings. Arrivals are flown as continuous descent approaches where possible, which keeps engines at low power and shaves noise off the long final.

Gatwick also publishes an Airline Noise Performance Table ranking carriers by the noise of their fleets — public pressure designed to push airlines toward quieter aircraft. The route-density layer on the map above makes the single-runway pattern vivid: one bright east-west spine with departure fans opening at each end, and far less of the multi-corridor spread you see around multi-runway hubs.

When is it quietest?

With no curfew, the rhythm is set by scheduling and the night-quota caps rather than a hard stop:

Night quota period (11:30 PM – 6 AM): movements are capped seasonally and the noisiest aircraft categories are excluded, so traffic thins out dramatically — but quieter jets still arrive and depart through the night, especially in summer when the cap is higher.
Early morning (5 AM – 7 AM): long-haul arrivals and the first short-haul departure wave build quickly; campaigners single out early departures over villages like Rusper.
Daytime (7 AM – 10 PM): sustained, high-frequency traffic — this is one of the world’s busiest single runways, and at peak the runway handles a movement roughly every minute.
Late evening (10 PM – 11:30 PM): still busy with inbound holiday traffic and late rotations before the quota period begins.

Season matters more than at most airports: the summer quota (11,200 night movements) is more than three times the winter one (3,250), so overnight noise is noticeably more frequent from spring to autumn. Wind matters too — a switch to easterly operations moves the arrival stream from the Lingfield side to the Capel side within the hour.

The Northern Runway — what changes

In September 2025 the Government granted the Development Consent Order for Gatwick’s Northern Runway project, permitting the standby runway’s centreline to shift 12 m north so it can be used routinely for departures alongside the main runway. The High Court dismissed legal challenges from local campaigners in June 2026, though an appeal remains possible. When dual operations begin, expect more total movements along the same east-west corridor rather than new flight paths — the two runways are only a couple of hundred metres apart. The map above reflects actual observed traffic, so any change in patterns will show up in the data as it happens.

How to check noise at your specific address

The map above answers “how loud is this spot?” in three steps:

Search your address or postcode in the bar at the bottom of the map.
Drop a pin — click the location marker that appears.
Read the noise report that opens in the sidebar: average daily noise (Leq), peak observed dB, flights per day passing within 2 km, and an hourly breakdown.

The Noise Heatmap layer (orange/red = louder) and the Route Density layer (purple/magenta = busier corridors) make Gatwick’s single east-west spine obvious at a glance. Because the corridor is so narrow, small distances matter: two addresses 3 km apart — one in Smallfield, one in outer East Grinstead — can have very different noise profiles. The pin-drop report gives you the observed numbers for your exact location, including the overnight hours the quota regime allows.

Area & postcode noise guide

Areas overflown by London Gatwick Airport traffic, ranked by this airport's share (rolling window to 2026-08-23). Each page shows the full picture across every airport and low-flying aircraft in the area.

Area	From Gatwick / day	All sources / day	Area rank
Horsham (RH12, RH13)	25	25	#1
Southwater (RH13)	22	23	#2
Lingfield (RH7)	19	20	#3
East Grinstead (RH19)	19	19	#4
Dormansland (RH7)	18	18	#6
Smallfield (RH6)	17	17	#7
Broadbridge Heath (RH12)	13	13	#9
Forest Row (RH18)	12	12	#10
Horley (RH6)	11	11	#12
Billingshurst (RH14)	11	11	#13
Burstow (RH6)	8	8	#16
Warnham (RH12)	8	8	#17
Ashurst Wood (RH19)	8	8	#18
Newchapel (RH7)	7	7	#19
Felbridge (RH19)	6	6	#20
Dormans Park (RH19)	6	6	#24
Slinfold (RH13)	6	6	#25
Rudgwick (RH12)	6	6	#26
South Nutfield (RH1)	5	12	#11
Redhill (RH1, RH2)	4	9	#15
Oxted (RH8)	2	6	#21
Reigate (RH2)	2	5	#29

Frequently asked questions

Which areas around Gatwick are quietest for aircraft noise?: Places off the east-west runway axis. Reigate and much of the North Downs to the north, and East Grinstead and the towns south of Crawley, sit clear of the low-altitude corridor and mainly hear dispersed traffic at height. The loudest band runs along the extended centreline — Edenbridge, Lingfield, Dormansland and Smallfield to the east, and Charlwood, Hookwood and Capel to the west — plus Horley right by the runway. Drop a pin on the map above to check any specific address.
What does 'westerly operations' at Gatwick mean?: It means aircraft take off and land facing west into the prevailing south-westerly wind — the case roughly 74% of the time. On westerly days, arrivals descend from the east over Edenbridge, Lingfield and Smallfield before crossing Horley on short final, while departures climb west over Charlwood and Rusper. On easterly days (~26%) the flow reverses: arrivals come in over Capel and Charlwood, departures climb east over Smallfield and Copthorne.
Why are planes so low over Lingfield and Dormansland?: Both villages sit under the instrument approach to runway 26L, the line arrivals follow from the east on westerly days. Aircraft are established on a continuous descent by that point, typically passing at a few thousand feet in a steady stream when Gatwick is busy. Because roughly three-quarters of the year is westerly, this is one of the most consistently overflown stretches in the Gatwick area.
Is Horley affected by Gatwick aircraft noise?: Yes — Horley sits immediately north of the airport, so aircraft on short final and initial climb pass close by whichever direction the runway is operating. It also picks up ground noise from taxiing and engine runs. Exposure varies street by street across the town; use the pin-drop tool on the map above to see the picture at your exact address.
Will Gatwick's Northern Runway make noise worse?: The Government approved the Northern Runway plan in September 2025, allowing the standby runway's centreline to be shifted 12 m north so it can be used routinely for departures alongside the main runway. The High Court dismissed legal challenges from local campaign groups in June 2026, though an appeal remains possible. More movements generally mean more overflight along the same east-west corridor; the project's conditions include noise controls, and local groups GACC and CAGNE continue to contest the impact.
How do I complain about aircraft noise from Gatwick?: Noise enquiries and complaints go to the London Gatwick Airspace Office — via the noise enquiry form on gatwickairport.com or the automated line on 07700 144 827. Including the date, time and your postcode helps the airport match your report to a specific flight. Community groups GACC and CAGNE also log and campaign on noise issues across Sussex, Surrey and Kent.
Is Crawley loud from Gatwick planes?: It depends on the neighbourhood. Crawley is the airport's home town, but the runway corridor runs east-west just north of it, so the town centre and southern neighbourhoods sit outside the loudest band. Langley Green and Northgate, on the northern edge, get climb-out and ground noise. The heatmap above shows the gradient clearly — drop a pin on your street to compare.
Does this map show all aircraft at Gatwick?: Effectively yes for the traffic that matters — Gatwick is almost entirely scheduled commercial jets, which carry ADS-B transponders, so the heatmap and route-density layers reflect real traffic accurately. Light general-aviation aircraft from nearby airfields such as Redhill may be under-represented, but they are a small share of the noise around the airport.

Sources and further reading

Aircraft Noise & Airspace — London Gatwick Airport
Night flight restrictions at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports from October 2025 (decision) — UK Department for Transport (GOV.UK)
Gatwick Airport — Wikipedia — Wikipedia
Gatwick Airport Northern Runway — project TR020005 — Planning Inspectorate
Noise and Flight Paths — GACC (Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign)
Noise Complaint — CAGNE (Communities Against Gatwick Noise and Emissions)

Data updated 2026-10-08 — live ADS-B monitoring, rolling 30-day statistics (methodology). Article text revised 2026-07-17.

30 dB	Whisper
45 dB	Quiet residential
55 dB	Normal conversation
65 dB	Busy road
75 dB	Vacuum cleaner
85 dB	Heavy traffic
95 dB	Motorcycle nearby

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Gatwick Flight Path Noise Map – London Gatwick Airport (LGW)

Aircraft noise around Gatwick in October 2026

Does Gatwick Airport have a curfew?

Which neighborhoods are quietest — and which aren’t

Flight patterns and runway use

When is it quietest?

The Northern Runway — what changes

How to check noise at your specific address

Area & postcode noise guide

Frequently asked questions

Sources and further reading

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