The service provides the latest SIGMET information in IWXXM for ATHINAI FIR/UIR, within the area of responsibility of the Hellenic National Meteorological Service, in accordance with the applicable ICAO requirements.
The information can be retrieved through a Publish/Subscribe service using AMQP 1.0, through which authorised consumers receive available SIGMET information; and, a Request/Reply service using the OGC Environmental Data Retrieval API, through which authorised consumers can request available SIGMET information provided in a compressed ZIP archive.
Categorisation
SERVICE_DESCRIPTION
PROSPECTIVE
- AERODROME_OPERATION
- AIRSPACE_ORGANISATION_AND_MANAGEMENT
- INFORMATION_MANAGEMENT
- SERVICE_DELIVERY_MANAGEMENT
- AIR_TRAFFIC_SERVICE_PROVIDER
- AIRPORT_OPERATOR
- AIRSIDE_GROUND_HANDLER
- CIVIL_AIR_NAVIGATION_SERVICE_PROVIDER
- CIVIL_AIRSPACE_USER
- COMMUNICATION_NAVIGATION_AND_SURVEILLANCE_SERVICE_PROVIDER
- MILITARY_AIR_NAVIGATION_SERVICE_PROVIDER
- MILITARY_AIRSPACE_USER
- PROVIDER_OF_DATA_SERVICES
- REGULATED_METEOROLOGICAL_SERVICE_PROVIDER
- METEOROLOGICAL_INFORMATION_EXCHANGE
- SYNCHRONOUS_REQUEST_REPLY
- PUBLISH_SUBSCRIBE_WITH_PUSH_MECHANISM
The dataset is valid for Greece
Provider
2026-11-06
Hellenic National Meteorological Service
The Hellenic National Meteorological Service (HNMS) is the official provider of aeronautical meteorological information and services for Greece.
- REGULATED_METEOROLOGICAL_SERVICE_PROVIDER
HNMS
Restricted
Restricted
Operational Needs
The operational needs addressed by this service are defined in the IWXXM SIGMET Subscription and Request Service Definition. The service supports the digital exchange of regulated aeronautical meteorological information in accordance with Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/373, ICAO Annex 3, ICAO PANS-MET (Doc 10157), and the scope of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/116 establishing Common Project One.
Information Exchange Requirements
IER 1 - Exchange of SIGMET information, provided in IWXXM format, as defined by the applicable European and ICAO requirements.
Capabilities
The service provides up-to-date, trusted and regulated SIGMET information in digital IWXXM format for use by authorised service consumers within the aviation domain.
Distribute Data
The service distributes SIGMET information to authorised consumers according to the available AMQP topics and subscriptions.
Meteorological information has been shared with the subscribed service consumer.
Request Data
The service consumer can request available SIGMET information through the OGC EDR API.
The service consumer receives the requested meteorological information.
Subscribe to Data
The authorised service consumer can subscribe to SIGMET information by connecting to the applicable AMQP 1.0 topic.
A subscription is established and the service consumer receives information matching the subscription.
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Time Behaviour
SIGMET: Under normal operations 90% of messages will be delivered within 10 minutes after the issuing time.
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Capacity
Subscriptions are managed with consideration of the capacity of the technical infrastructure. Each connection and rate is limited to avoid overload of the system.
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Availability
The technical infrastructure is highly available and maintained - The system has intended downtimes for security patches of OS and software of approximately 5 minutes/month
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Recoverability
There exists a fallback system which ensures recovery after incidents.
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Integrity
The service ensures point-to-point integrity in accordance with EUROCONTROL Specification for SWIM Technical Infrastructure (TI) Yellow Profile through the use of Transport Layer Security (TLS). However the Message Security based on S/MIME 4.0 proposed in SWIM TI Yellow Profile 2.0 is not yet implemented.
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Confidentiality
Data is made available only to registered and authorised service consumers. Communications with the OGC EDR and AMQP interfaces are encrypted using TLS-protected HTTPS and AMQPS connections.
Information Retainment
SERVICE_CONSUMPTION_CONSTRAINT
In accordance with ICAO ANNEX 3, meteorological information is retained for a period of at least 30 days from the date of issue. This relates to the information itself and not the time at which it was requested by the customer.
Subscription
SERVICE_CONSUMPTION_CONSTRAINT
Service consumers shall contact the HNMS SWIM MET Service and request access credentials before using the service. The contact email address is [email protected].
Authentication
SECURITY_CONSTRAINT
- Access to the service is restricted to registered users and controlled through source IP address whitelisting.
- The service is secured using TLS and is provided with an EACP-issued server certificate. All communications are encrypted in accordance with SWIM Technical Infrastructure Yellow Profile security requirements.
- Authorised users may access the service through the HTTPS and AMQPS interfaces. For AMQPS connectivity, the service provides access using the guest account without password. Access is permitted only from pre-authorised white-listed IP addresses.
Authorisation
SECURITY_CONSTRAINT
The service ensures that satisfactory authorisation is put in place according to EUROCONTROL Specification for SWIM Technical Infrastructure (TI) Yellow Profile requirement SWIM-TIYP-0070.
Confidentiality
SECURITY_CONSTRAINT
Point-to-point confidentiality is provided through Transport Layer Security. The OGC EDR interface is exposed through HTTPS and the AMQP interface through AMQPS. Unencrypted external access is not provided.
Integrity
SECURITY_CONSTRAINT
Point-to-point integrity is protected through Transport Layer Security for both service interfaces. End-to-end message-level security using S/MIME 4.0 is not implemented.
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BULATSA SWIM Service Desk
- EMAIL : [email protected]
- URL : https://www.bulatsa.com/
SELF_VALIDATION
The service was successfully tested and accepted during Site Acceptance Testing, as documented in the signed SAT Protocol.
KEY TERMS
Concepts describe the key terms and meteorological elements used in the service, including SIGMET messages, IWXXM data model, validity period of the information, FIR/UIR identifiers, and operationally significant weather phenomena such as severe turbulence, icing, thunderstorms, and volcanic ash, in accordance with ICAO standards
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HNMSHellenic National Meteorological Service
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AIRMATM Information Reference Model
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AMQPAdvanced Message Queuing Protocol
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AMOAerodrome Meteorological Office
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AMSAeronautical Meteorological Station
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ATCAir Traffic Control
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ATMAir Traffic Management
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EACPEuropean Aviation Common Public Key Infrastructure
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EDREnvironmental Data Retrieval
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HTTPHypertext Transfer Protocol
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HTTPSHypertext Transfer Protocol Secure
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ICAOInternational Civil Aviation Organization
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IERInformation Exchange Requirement
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IWXXMICAO Meteorological Information Exchange Model
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MEPMessage Exchange Pattern
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OGCOpen Geospatial Consortium
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PANS-METProcedures for Air Navigation Services - Meteorology
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SASLSimple Authentication and Security Layer
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SWIMSystem Wide Information Management
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TLSTransport Layer Security
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TITechnical Infrastructure
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TIYPTechnical Infrastructure Yellow Profile
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WMOWorld Meteorological Organization
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IRImplementation Rules
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ISRMInformation Service Reference Model
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NWSNational Weather Service
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PCPPilot Common Project
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REQRequirement
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SIGMETSignificant Meteorological Information
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Filtering Capabilities OGC EDR
The OGC EDR implementation is based on the MET3SG MET SWIM OGC EDR Guidance. It supports location queries and spatial and temporal filtering mechanisms, including cube queries using a bounding-box parameter, area queries using a polygon specified through the coords parameter, and radius queries.
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Filtering Capabilities AMQP
Basic filtering is provided through the AMQP topic structure, which identifies the type of meteorological information distributed. Further filtering can be applied by the service consumer using SQL-like filters over the AMQP application properties, including the report status, ICAO location identifier and relevant date and time values.
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The service provider ensures that the data offered within this service is created by Hellenic National Meteorological Service, a REGULATED_METEOROLOGICAL_SERVICE_PROVIDER.
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https://airm.aero/developers/icao-wxxm-3.0.0-to-airm-1.0.0-index
AIRM:
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Typical Request/Reply Behaviour
The service consumer sends a request to the OGC EDR interface using the applicable collection, location and filtering parameters. The service processes the request and returns the corresponding HTTP response. When matching SIGMET information is available, the service returns a ZIP archive containing one or more IWXXM messages. When a valid query does not produce any data, the service returns HTTP status code 204.
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Typical Data Distribution Behaviour
When new SIGMET information becomes available, the service distributes the IWXXM message to authorised consumers whose AMQP subscriptions match the applicable topic and filter conditions. The IWXXM payload is included in the AMQP message together with the applicable AMQP message and application properties.
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Typical Data Subscription Behaviour
The service consumer contacts the HNMS SWIM MET Service and requests access to the service. Following authorisation and registration, the consumer receives the necessary credentials, endpoint information, AMQP topic details and instructions for accessing the OGC EDR and AMQP interfaces. The applicable contact email address is [email protected].
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For AMQP subscriptions, regular heartbeat messages are sent to the weather.aviation.SIGMET topic at approximately 60-second intervals. Arrival of the heartbeat message indicates that the main subsystems of the service are running.
The service is monitored through the SWIM Weather Console and the associated log-viewing and system-monitoring components. Monitoring covers the status of service processes, Podman containers, cluster resources, data-ingestion flows, OGC EDR interfaces, the AMQP broker and connected AMQP clients. The HNMS service components are monitored on a 24/7 basis.
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OGC EDR Request Interface
Allows authorised service consumers to request available Hellenic SIGMET information through the OGC API Environmental Data Retrieval interface.
PROVIDER_SIDESYNCHRONOUS_REQUEST_RESPONSE-
EDR operations
The OGC API Environmental Data Retrieval standard is used to implement the service operations, including location, area, radius and cube queries.
Messages-
EDR RequestIN
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EDR ReplyOUT
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EndpointsRestricted
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SWIM_TI_YP_2_0_WS_LIGHT
The WS Light Interface Binding as specified in the EUROCONTROL Specification for SWIM Technical Infrastructure Yellow Profile, Edition 2.0.
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SWIM_TI_YP_2_0_IPV4_UNICAST
The service supports IPv4 unicast network communication.
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EDR Request
An HTTP GET request submitted to the OGC EDR interface containing the applicable collection, location, spatial, temporal and other supported query parameters.
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EDR Reply
The HTTP response returned by the service. When matching information is available, the response contains a ZIP archive with one or more SIGMET messages encoded in IWXXM. When a valid query produces no matching data, the service returns HTTP status code 204.
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AMQP Distribution Interface
Allows HNMS to distribute newly available SIGMET information in IWXXM format to authorised service consumers using AMQP 1.0 subscriptions.
PROVIDER_SIDEFIRE_AND_FORGET-
Publish
The SIGMET IWXXM payload is distributed directly within the AMQP message together with the applicable AMQP message and application properties.
Messages-
AMQP MessageOUT
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EndpointsRestricted
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SWIM_TI_YP_2_0_AMQP_MESSAGING
The AMQP Messaging Interface Binding as specified in the EUROCONTROL Specification for SWIM Technical Infrastructure Yellow Profile, Edition 2.0.
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SWIM_TI_YP_2_0_IPV4_UNICAST
The service supports IPv4 unicast network communication.
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AMQP Message
An AMQP 1.0 message containing SIGMET information encoded in IWXXM. The message includes the applicable subject and content type, together with application properties such as report status, FIR/UIR identifier, issue time, validity start time and validity end time.
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EUROCONTROL SWIM-TI Yellow Profile
EUROCONTROL_SPECIFICATION_FOR_SWIM_TECHNICAL_INFRASTRUCTURE
is compliant
2.0
EUROCONTROL Specification for SWIM Technical Infrastructure Yellow Profile, Edition 2.0.
EUROCONTROL SWIM Service Description
EUROCONTROL_SPECIFICATION_FOR_SWIM_SERVICE_DESCRIPTION
is compliant
2.0
The service is described in accordance with the EUROCONTROL Specification for SWIM Service Description, Edition 2.0.
OGC API Environmental Data Retrieval (EDR)
EUROCONTROL_SPECIFICATION_FOR_SWIM_TECHNICAL_INFRASTRUCTURE
is conformant
1.1
The Request/Reply interface implements the OGC API Environmental Data Retrieval standard and the applicable MET SWIM OGC EDR Guidance.
Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP)
EUROCONTROL_SPECIFICATION_FOR_SWIM_TECHNICAL_INFRASTRUCTURE
is conformant
1.0
The Publish/Subscribe interface uses the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol version 1.0.