About

Mission Statement

The Friends and Partners in Aviation Weather (FPAW) group was created in 1997 to bring together all members of the greater aviation weather community and enable an open dialogue between them. FPAW’s mission is to increase understanding of the impact of weather on current and emerging aviation operations, identify, discuss and provide support to problem areas that need further development of accurate and timely weather guidance, and facilitate the integration of weather into the operational decision-making process. In striving toward the ultimate goal, namely the safest, most efficient and reliable aviation operations possible, FPAW’s role is to serve as the aviation weather community of practice.

Building a strategy for aviation weather through effective science, development and implementation

Stakeholders

FPAW believes that most aviation weather stakeholders belong to one of four groups:

• Users of aviation weather information
• Producers of aviation weather information
• Aviation weather researchers and engineers
• Regulatory, standards, and policy overseers

Each of these groups is further described below.

Users of aviation weather information include flight crews (pilots and flight attendants), air traffic controllers, traffic managers and FAA managers, aircraft dispatchers, airport operators, and aircraft, avionics and decision support system manufacturers, along with the companies they work for, the organizations they represent and the trade groups that represent them.

Producers of aviation weather information start with the Meteorological (Met) Authority as designated by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). For the United States (U.S.), the Met Authority is the FAA. They also include the primary producers of raw, underlying weather information. In the U.S., the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service is the primary weather information producer. Finally, this category also includes organizations that create value-added, aviation weather products. In the U.S., they include the NWS, the FAA and various companies in the private sector.

The aviation weather research and engineering community includes academic, public and private organizations, and relevant individuals within those organizations, that are working on the introduction of weather product improvements to the aviation system. 

The regulatory, standards, and policy oversight community includes federal agencies (FAA), international organizations (ICAO, WMO) and standards bodies (RTCA, ASTM, etc.), and relevant individuals within those organizations, that are working on the regulation, standards, and policy guidance of weather information for the aviation system.