Where are the planes?

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SideEmbarrassed1611@reddit

"You're cleared for takeoff 09 Right."

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flatliner2@reddit (OP)

I saw that one, just zero at the gates.

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AlexFinns85@reddit

Maybe they come from the COVID period?

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Gloomfang_@reddit

Isn't it just composition of many pictures and they pick parts where there are no planes?

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NationalDonutModel@reddit

But then why don’t they do this with all airports? And how did they get the car parks so empty?

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Wafer420@reddit

Because it's a lot of effort.

Source; created tons of high res merged aerial survey photography

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NationalDonutModel@reddit

Which begs the question: why bother for Heathrow? I suspect the real answer as to why there are so few planes here is because the image/images were taken during Covid

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Healthy-Ear-2511@reddit

Yep! I remember pre COVID there were so many jets in the terminals on maps and earth

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Te_Luftwaffle@reddit

Google maps says the image was taken in 2026

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Companies like ours are tasked with creating a survey grade orthomosaic aerial photograph. Basically a big TIFF file that's comprised of many small images that are merged together. The customer can be an airport or a municipality. We deliver the ortho photo to our client and then often companies like Google Maps and Apple Maps will purchase these ortho photos from those clients to incorporate the data into their own maps service.

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CalculatorClicker@reddit

Additionally Google buys large swaths of commercial satellite photos and uses machine-learning assisted processes to put them all together in the ways they'd like.

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bigcitydreaming@reddit

Heathrow was full of grounded planes for a lot of the lockdown

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NationalDonutModel@reddit

Interesting. Weird to go to the effort of removing them all for this image!

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CalculatorClicker@reddit

It's far less effort than you'd think.

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SuperFriendlyAv8or@reddit

There were many many planes parked at Heathrow during Covid, they didn't just evaporate 😂

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Either_Letterhead_77@reddit

Yeah, I think they composite several images and only keep the parts that are present in many images. You see the same kind of things on many highways in google maps as well, and to some degree on city streets.

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Dry_Pick_304@reddit

According to Google Maps Pro, that image was taken during April 2020, so peak Covid lockdown, when barely any traveling was happening.

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TialanoUtrigas@reddit

Heathrow was CHOCK full of parked planes during COVID. Ba had to park a number of their Airbus fleet on the taxiways

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InfidelZombie@reddit

They're staying as far away as possible from that shitty Plaza Premium Lounge.

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flatliner2@reddit (OP)

lol

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DismalIngenuity4604@reddit

When was the photo taken? 2020 by any chance?

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Kanyiko@reddit

April 10th 2020.

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schwanerhill@reddit

AFAIK the planes didn’t just vanish from the face of the Earth during COVID shutdowns. Weren’t they parked somewhere when not flying? Like at airports?

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Kanyiko@reddit

They were parked at "storage" airports in places where the climate was much better for long-term storage. Places like Tarbes (France), Teruel (Spain), Victorville (California, United States), etc.

Heathrow is located near the Thames estuary in a location that is frequently humid and cold - not a good location to store aircraft on a long-time basis.

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Stan4Max4Ever@reddit

Heathrow is a long way from the Thames Estuary, it's the other side of London entirely!

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Kanyiko@reddit

Entirely the other side of London, but it's still only 40\~50 km in distance.

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Pandalism@reddit

I just checked Google Earth, which lets you see images from different dates. This one from 2020/4/10 is also the default, but there is another from 5 days earlier which lots of parked planes and different color correction. I think this is a manually edited and merged image, which is why it's still being used when the most recent available is from last year.

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schwanerhill@reddit

Yeah. Planes that were taken out of service for extended periods were taken to the desert, but it's not like nothing was flying at all.

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flatliner2@reddit (OP)

Nice, thanks.

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DismalIngenuity4604@reddit

Hahahaha, well then. Covid may have been a factor?

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Hour_Analyst_7765@reddit

Didn't a lot of airlines fly empty planes around? Because

1) It reserved their take off slots. If you don't use them, you would lose them.

2) Passenger airlines have essential cargo capacity that far outnumbers what dedicated cargo companies could manage. Especially for safe goods like masks I've seen empty widebodies (from KLM) flown to asia just for this purpose.

With that, I would expect a lot more planes.

Also (commercial) satellite images are nearly not sharp enough for this resolution.

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DismalIngenuity4604@reddit

Dunno, but sounds like most flights were cancelled:

This Golden Age of air travel was over, to say the least. Load factors decreased dramatically — and rapidly. By March, airlines had canceled 30 per cent of flights, and by April, 50 to 60 per cent. By May, airlines had implemented a 90 per cent reduction of scheduled flights.

https://skiesmag.com/features/airlines-crisis-flying-covid/

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iamworsethanyou@reddit

I was working in T5 at that time, we went down to 9 flights per day with average pax of 300 per day. That was including Qatar, JAL, American and China Eastern who temporarily flew from T5.

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DismalIngenuity4604@reddit

That must have been surreal.

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toastersFTW@reddit

I work for an airline and during COVID we didn't necessarily fly them empty anywhere, low bookings sometimes literally 1 person on a plane by themselves or just cargo no passengers. We did however tow aircraft around to different gates all day to reserve gate spots kinda like you said. The city controls who "owns" each gate so by placing an empty aircraft in the gate for a few hours you can say we used that gate and they wouldn't threaten to give it to a different airline.

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sneijder@reddit

Heathrow and other airports abandoned the ‘use it or lose it’ slot allocation during Covid.

It was getting crazy, Air Malta ? (Might be an error) were routinely running an empty aircraft. I know of another airline who (near bankruptcy) listed their slots at an airport as an asset on the balance sheet … months before covid when they were eventually worthless.

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flyawaybye@reddit

Object removal / AI cleanup. Google sometimes uses algorithms to clean up images:

Removing artifacts (like moving vehicles or planes)
Prioritizing a clean, static-looking map

This can unintentionally erase planes or make them faint.

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planefan001@reddit

Photoshopped out

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JohnDisinformation@reddit

Was this during Covid?

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flatliner2@reddit (OP)

Yes, but I never stopped flying during Covid.

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JohnDisinformation@reddit

Yes but alot of people did

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flatliner2@reddit (OP)

I get it, but to have zero planes at the gates is just bizarre. Heathrow is one of the busiest airports, so as others said it just has to be stitched photos.

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CoolD10onYT@reddit

they cleared the airport the day that this was taken for a clear shot

/s

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GreatMinds1234@reddit

What airport is this supposed to be?

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flatliner2@reddit (OP)

Heathrow in London

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Bon-Bon-Boo@reddit

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flatliner2@reddit (OP)

lol, I know that one…I meant at the gates.

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flightwatcher45@reddit

Really throws me off when I look at roads and the cars have been removed. On a road trip across a few states, not using major freeways, it appeared on Google that the roads would be empty, nope, tons of traffic.

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Griffie@reddit

Their cloaking devices were activated

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KUGDI@reddit

In the sky with the angels, as God intended

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Ordinary_Kyle@reddit

Conversly, O'hare has the same Cathay Pacific cargo plane 3 times on it. Once in the gate, once pushed out, and once taxiing out of the cargo facility.

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woshju@reddit

Wait, how can you tell that’s a CX cargo?

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Marklar_RR@reddit

The image quality on google maps is good enough to read CATHAY PACIFIC CARGO written on the side of the plane.

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CalculatorClicker@reddit

That could be ANYONE!

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zeromadcowz@reddit

It could even be CATHAY CARGO PACIFIC!

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Ordinary_Kyle@reddit

It even has it, partially, two more times on the taxiway.

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DFLDrew@reddit

I'm happy to see the asymmetric wing idea attempted again

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Ordinary_Kyle@reddit

The top one is quite the airframe

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CrappyTan69@reddit

This is why AI sometimes comes up with crazy ideas. It's trained on these types of "planes" 🤣

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Mother_Candidate2555@reddit

Planes were parked at Bournemouth and Spain at that time, although the Bournemouth picture on google earth has been updated since Covid whereas LHR hasn’t for some reason

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Ostie3994@reddit

The Langoliers

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Safe-Informal@reddit

It because all airliners are built with stealth technology. You can take a picture of one from the ground, but they are invisible to satellite images.

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jrmoore3801@reddit

I have seen this is a few places and just assumed it was during the height of Covid when most planes were parked in storage elsewhere….

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Tchocky@reddit

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lbutler1234@reddit

I'd assume Google Earth would be using newer imagery than that.

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FillinThaBlank@reddit

Nah. They only rend to update satellite images every 4-6 years

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lbutler1234@reddit

Huh.

The funny thing is that they have historical images for Heathrow from 2025, 24, 22, and 21. (But much cooler is the extremely high quality image set they have from 1945. (It's pictured below. The airport has changed a wee bit since then.))

But idk enough about their data flow (or whatever the proper term is) to give much of a worthwhile analysis. Maybe trying to "date" the imagery is the wrong way to look at it and it's just a composite of a bunch of different images taken at a bunch of different times.

(Maybe I should do a deep dive on that sometime lol. Also - how do they (and/or Microsoft flight sim) make their 3d models? Like they seem really freaking good, and I'm sure there's a very hefty degree of automation to it.)

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Saltyspaceballs@reddit

Few were parked in storage through Covid, only the 380 and the 747 as they went to retirement (still not over that). LHR was still busy on the ground back then.

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IllustriousWedding94@reddit

They parked a bunch of planes at other UK airports. Tons of neos went to Bournemouth, for instance. Cheaper fees than LHR parking....

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SuperFriendlyAv8or@reddit

LHR waived aircraft parking fees early on in the pandemic

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velosnow@reddit

Having a stag party over at Stansted.

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DashTrash21@reddit

Couldn't afford rent

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itsjamiemann@reddit

To all those saying it was during Covid - there were still aircraft all over the ground at LHR during the lockdowns. BA didn’t move them all to storage…

As another reply has stated, it’s a composite image!

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cyberentomology@reddit

If it was during Covid, a lot of the DL planes were kicking it at MCI and SLN.

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roadbikemadman@reddit

Raptured. Obviously.

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cyberentomology@reddit

Even the F-22 Raptures

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Muted_Fuel7549@reddit

Why would the OP expect a woodworking tool to show up on Google maps at an airport?

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timweak@reddit

i ated them sorry

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Weak_Tangerine_6316@reddit

It’s a composited image that ensues as few planes as possible. It’s a more useful image without the planes as you get an unobstructed view of the airport infrastructure.

As someone who has had to study an airport for work, it is much appreciated.

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dv20bugsmasher@reddit

Sky

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JoulSauron@reddit

It's a known thing that, for some reason, Google Maps/Earth decided to publish photos of airports with no aircraft. I'd like to know why, but this has been happening since many years ago, and I remember Googling for answers before COVID.

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Kanyiko@reddit

Going by Google Maps data, the aerial of Heathrow currently used was made on April 10th 2020.

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Cooperkid@reddit

If you go to Google Earth you can see the date of the Images.

This is from 2020 during covid.

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AShadedBlobfish@reddit

I think the satellite it uses was taken during COVID, but that's mostly based on how empty the car parks are

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Marklar_RR@reddit

Desktop version of Google maps shows the date when satellite imagery was captured. It says 2026.

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thekingoflumberland1@reddit

I had the same theory and looked around online to see, they use intelligence to pick apart planes from imagery (To remove primarily the flying ones) and the ones on the ground just get picked out too unfortunately.

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FlatTyres@reddit

In addition to the answers already provided, I often like to use the downloadable and installable Google Earth to view things like airports - there is a button that allows you to use a slider to see all the satellite/high altitude-taken photographs over time. Any taken in March to [northern hemisphere] summer show airports jammed packed with grounded planes. Viewing high altitude photos from 20+ years ago shows the massive variety of planes we used to see including tri-jets. You also get to see the satellite/high-altitude photos that were rejected due to cloud cover (partial or full).

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