System Wide Information Management (SWIM) is a global

Air Traffic Management 334x334px, Air traffic management (ATM) is an aviation term encompassing all systems that assist aircraft to depart from an aerodrome, transit airspace, and land at a destination aerodrome, consisting of air traffic services (ATS) including air tr ...

(ATM) industry initiative to harmonize the exchange of Aeronautical, Weather and Flight information for all Airspace Users and Stakeholders. SWIM is an integral part of the

International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international a ...

br>Global Air Navigation Plan (GANP)
. The GANP defines 4 Performance Improvement Areas (PIA), SWIM resides in PIA 2: Globally interoperable systems and data, where its implementation is further defined in Aviation System Block Upgrades (ASBU) B1-SWIM and B2-SWIM. ASBU B1-SWIM defines SWIM as a “a net-centric operation where the air traffic management (ATM) network is considered as a series of nodes, including the aircraft, providing or using information.” it goes on to say “The sharing of information of the required quality and timeliness in a secure environment is an essential enabler to the ATM target concept.” Eurocontrol initially presented the SWIM System concept to the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...

(FAA) in 1997 and in 2005, the ICAO Global ATM Operational Concept adopted the SWIM concept to promote information-based ATM integration. SWIM is now part of development projects in the United States (

Next Generation Air Transportation System The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) is an ongoing United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) project to modernize the National Airspace System (NAS). The FAA began work on NextGen improvements in 2007 and plans to finis ...

, or NextGen), the Middle East
GCAA SWIM Gateway
and the European Union (

Single European Sky ATM Research Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) is a collaborative project to completely overhaul European airspace and its air traffic management (ATM). The actual program is managed by the SESAR Joint Undertaking as a public–private partnership (PP ...

). Within the FAA, the FAA SWIM program is an advanced technology program designed to facilitate greater sharing of ATM system information, such as airport operational status, weather information, flight data, status of special use airspace, and

National Airspace System The National Airspace System (NAS) is the airspace, navigation facilities and airports of the United States along with their associated information, services, rules, regulations, policies, procedures, personnel and equipment. It includes components ...

(NAS) restrictions. SWIM will support current and future NAS programs by providing a flexible and secure information management architecture for sharing NAS information. SWIM will use commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software to support a

Service Oriented Architecture In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. By consequence, it is also applied in the field of software design where services are provide ...

(SOA) that will facilitate the addition of new systems and data exchanges and increase common situational awareness. SWIM is part of FAA's NextGen, an umbrella term for the ongoing evolution of the United States' NAS from a ground-based system of

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airsp ...

(ATC) to a satellite-based system of air traffic management. The transformation to NextGen requires programs and technologies that provide more efficient operations, including streamlined communications capabilities. The SWIM program is an integral part of that transformation that will connect FAA systems. The SWIM program will also enable interaction with other members of the decision-making community including other government agencies, air navigation service providers, and airspace users. The SWIM program will lead to a variety of benefits. SWIM will help improve aviation safety through increased common situational awareness by allowing more decision makers to access the same information. This will provide consistent information to different users (pilots, controllers, dispatchers) that supports proactive decision-making. SWIM as a concept is essential to providing the most efficient use of airspace, managing air traffic around weather, and increasing common

situational awareness Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status. An alternative definition is tha ...

on the ground. SWIM core services will enable systems to request and receive information when they need it, subscribe for automatic receipt, and publish information and services as appropriate. This will provide for sharing of information across different systems. This will allow airspace users and controllers to access the most current information that may be affecting their area of responsibility in a more efficient manner. SWIM will improve decision-making and streamline information sharing for improved planning and execution. SWIM will also help reduce infrastructure costs by decreasing the number of unique interfaces between systems. Initially, SWIM will provide a common interface framework, reducing the operation and maintenance costs of current interfaces. New systems will interface with each other via SWIM-compliant interfaces, thereby reducing future data interface development costs. Ultimately, redundant data sources will no longer be needed, and associated systems will be decommissioned. SWIM is one of the key component of the SESAR (

) programme managed by the

SESAR Joint Undertaking The Single European Sky ATM Research 3 Joint Undertaking is an institutionalised European public-private partnership, established in 2021, to accelerate through research and development the delivery of the Digital European Sky, as part of the ...

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