Austrian METAR/SPECI in IWXXM 1.0
Current JSON Original JSON

Abstract

The service provides the latest METAR or SPECI reports in IWXXM for Austrian aerodromes, listed in the EUR Air Navigation Plan Volume II, MET Table II-2, in compliance with ICAO Annex 3.

The data can be retrieved either by

  • Subscription (Publish/Subscribe Service) via AMQP 1.0 to receive the whole dataset and/or
  • Using the Request/Reply Service via the OGC EDR API (IWXXM data will be provided in a compressed ZIP-file).
Service Type
SWIM_COMPLIANT
Abbreviation
ACG
Life Cycle
PROSPECTIVE
Business Activity Type
AERODROME_OPERATION
AIRSPACE_ORGANISATION_AND_MANAGEMENT
INFORMATION_MANAGEMENT
SERVICE_DELIVERY_MANAGEMENT
Intended Consumer
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
Information Exchange Category
METEOROLOGICAL_INFORMATION_EXCHANGE
Application Message Exchange Pattern Entity
Request/Reply
State ICAO Nationality Letters
LO
Geospatial Categorisation Description
The dataset is valid for Austria
Other
Service Type: METEOROLOGICAL_FEATURE_ACCESS_SERVICE
In-Operation Date
31-Dec-2025
Provider
Austro Control

The Austrian air navigation service provider

Provider Type
REGULATED_METEOROLOGICAL_SERVICE_PROVIDER
Support

ACG (Austro Control GmbH) is the designated Austrian ANSP, being also the legitimate entity to provide Aeronautical Meteorological Services (AMO, AMF and MWO) for and within the Austrian FIR.
ACG is providing services in accordance with Annex 3 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation and the EU Regulation 2017/373, to ensure the safety, regularity, and efficiency of air navigation in Austria.

Point of Contact
Operational Needs

A list of operational needs that this service contributes to satisfying is available in IWXXM METAR-SPECI Service Definition, Appendix B (to be found on the SWIM WIKI). This service satisfies these by offering meteorological information as regulated by the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/373 of 1 March 2017 and ICAO Annex 3 and ICAO PANS MET (Doc 10157). The scope of the meteorological information satisfies the EU Implementing Regulation 2021/116 - Common Project One.

Information Exchange Requirements

IER 1 - The information currently included in the METAR/SPECI reports as defined in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/373, ICAO Annex 3 Amdt 82 and PANS-MET (ICAO Doc 10157).

Capabilities

The service provides high quality, up-to-date, trusted, regulated meteorological information in digital form for use by service consumers within the aviation domain.

Distribute Data

The service distributes the data according to the stored subscriptions and topics.

Request Data

The consumer is able to request data from the service by using an OGC EDR - API endpoint.

Subscribe to Data

The user is able to subscribe to data via AMQP 1.0 messages by connecting to the predefined topics.

Information Retainment

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.

Authentication and authorization

Access is limited by policy to users within the Aviation domain. The service ensures client authentication in accordance with SWIM Technical Infrastructure (TI) Yellow Profile 2.0 requirement SWIM-TIYP-0042 by implementing username and password authentication using HTTP Authorization headers with basic scheme for HTTPS based interfaces, and using SASL PLAIN for AMQP.

The service ensures provider authentication in accordance with SWIM-TIYP-0042.

 

 

Confidentiality

The service ensures point-to-point confidentiality in accordance with EUROCONTROL Specification for SWIM Technical Infrastructure (TI) Yellow Profile 2.0 through the use of Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3. The communication is encrypted by TLS with a certificate issued by the EACP.

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.

Time Behaviour

METAR/SPECI: Under normal operations 90% of messages will be delivered within 10 minutes after the issuing time.

Capacity

Subscriptions are managed with consideration of the capacity of the technical infrastructure. Each connection is rate and connection limited to avoid overload of the system.

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

Recoverability

There exists a fallback system which ensures recovery after incidents.

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.

Confidentiality

Data delivery is only available for registered users, who need to present their username and password for access to the services using HTTP Authorization header with basic scheme for HTTP based connections, and using SASL plain for AMQP connections.

ACG

Austro Control GesmbH

AIRM

ATM Information Reference Model

AMQP

Advanced Message Queuing Protocol

ATC

Air Traffic Control

ATM

Air Traffic Management

EACP

European Aviation Common PKI

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

ICAO

International Civil Aviation Organization

IER

Information Exchange Requirement

IR

Implementation Rules

ISRM

Information Service Reference Model

IWXXM

ICAO Meteorological Information Exchange Model

METAR

Meteorological Aerodrome Report

NWS

National Weather Service

OGC

Open Geospatial Consortium

PCP

Pilot Common Project

WMO

World Meteorological Organization

SIGMET

significant meteorological phenomena

TAF

Terminal Aerodrome Forecast

AMO

Aerodrome Meteorological Office

AMS

Aeronautical Meteorological Station

EDR

Environmental Data Retrieval

MEP

Message Exchange Pattern

PANS-MET

ICAO Procedures for Air Navigation Services - Meteorology

TIYP

Technical Infrastructure Yellow Profile

TI

Technical Infrastructure

Information
METAR/SPECI in IWXXM

The semantic correspondence for each of the IWXXM message fields to the AIRM can be found on the following website:

 

AIRM:

https://airm.aero/developers/icao-wxxm-3.0.0-to-airm-1.0.0-index
Filtering Capabilities OGC EDR

The EDR implementation builds on MET3SG community MET SWIM OGC EDR GUIDANCE. Additionally it supports OGC EDR filtering machanisms: cube query using a bbox parameter, area query with a polygon specified in coords parameter, radius query.

Filtering Capabilities AMQP

Simple filtering is achieved using the topic structure of the broker, which determines the type of data recieved. AMQP SQL-like syntax for filters applied to AMQP application properties can be also used by the service consumer to further filter the data received.

The service provider ensures that the data offered within this service is created by Austro Control, a REGULATED_METEOROLOGICAL_SERVICE_PROVIDER.
Monitoring Description

For AMQP subscriptions, regular heartbeat messages are sent to weather.aviation.metar topic at approximately 60-second intervals. Arrival of the heartbeat message indicates that the main subsystems of the service are running.

The ACG IT components are montitored by 24/7 maintanance

Typical Request/Reply Behaviour

The typical behavior is following:

  • The client sends a request to the OGC EDR interface
  • The service replies with the appropriate HTTP response
  • If the request for specific IWXXM data is made, the service returns a zip archive with one or more files containing IWXXM messages.
Typical Data Subscription Behaviour

For subscribing to data the consumer needs to contact the Service Provider and needs to request the credentials. After registration, the consumer is provided the endpoints both EDR and AMQP interfaces.

OGC EDR Request Interface

Allows the service consumer to request the latest available METAR/SPECIs via OGC API - EDR.

PROVIDER_SIDE
SYNCHRONOUS_REQUEST_RESPONSE
Operations
SWIM_TI_YP_2_0_WS_LIGHT

The WS Light Interface Binding as detailed in the EUROCONTROL Specification for SWIM Technical Infrastructure Yellow Profile, edition 2.0.

EDR Request
EDR Reply
AMQP Distribution Interface

Allows the service provider to distribute the latest available METAR/SPECIs, meeting the need of the service consumer that has subscribed for updates.

PROVIDER_SIDE
FIRE_AND_FORGET
Operations
Publish

The requested information is contained directly in the AMQP message

Idempotent
IDEMPOTENT
Operation Message
AMQP Message
AMQP base endpoint

The base endpoint for AMQP subscriptions, from which AMQP messages may be retrieved

Url

amqps://met.swim.austrocontrol.at:5671

SWIM_TI_YP_2_0_AMQP_MESSAGING

The AMQP_MESSAGING Interface Binding as detailed in the EUROCONTROL Specification for SWIM Technical Infrastructure Yellow Profile, edition 2.0

AMQP Message
References
AMQP

Advanced Message Queuing Protocol

Revision Save Date
Wed, 04/08/2026 - 13:52
Schema version
v2