Massive increase in aircraft

Living in Forest Hill there has been a big increase in aircraft flying overhead in the last week. I have an app which gives me information of the aircraft flying height, where they originate from & where the plane is due to land.
Mostly the planes are heading to Heathrow & a lot are from red listed countries & their airlines.
This isn’t what the government & the aviation industry are telling us.
Unfortunately I live under the Heathrow& worse still London City airpath so would had notice if this increase if had happened sooner. So why since the traffic light system has been brought in to ‘protect us from covid variants’ has aircraft from especially red listed countries increased to near normal levels

I think Heathrow Airport has opened terminal 3 just for flights from countries on the red list. Perhaps this has encouraged more flights.

One of the rare positives from this last 14 months has been the relative peace in Forest Hill without overhead flights. A surreal feeling sat listening to birdsong in the middle of Zone 3. The reopening of City Airport in the last few weeks and the uptick in flights this week has really been noticeable as a result.

It’s a tough one. Great to see things opening up but the return of endless noise across London is a real shame all the same.

Today seems like the sudden return of really regular flights. Forgot how loud they are! Has been quite a shock to the system after the last 14 months.

I have an app which gives me information of the aircraft flying height, where they originate from & where the plane is due to land.

Curious - is that Flightradar24 or something else?

Are the really loud flights over Forest Hill City Airport or Heathrow? Assume the former as I thought the latter would be too high to be that noticeable?

No, I think they are about 3000ft, definitely noticeable.

It has been lovely to have a very long break from frequent plane noise over our area.

Today is one of those days when we get all London City inbound flights at around 2000 ft. And at the same time a proportion of the much larger planes of Heathrow inbound flights at around 4000 -5000 ft.

Getting both at the same time only happens in certain wind conditions, it is usually one or the other.

Could it also be that the prevailing wind changed directions, originating from the east, for a few days last week? Planes take off and land into a headwind, so that will tend to change flight patterns around airports.