FIXM is the standard data model for exchanging flight information between air traffic management systems, developed jointly by the FAA, EUROCONTROL and international partners. Alongside AIXM for aeronautical information and IWXXM for aviation weather, it forms the exchange-model layer that SWIM services carry — a domain vocabulary defined once and reused across every participating system.
FIXM
FIXM, the Flight Information Exchange Model, is the shared data model for moving flight information between air traffic management systems, developed jointly by the FAA, EUROCONTROL and international partners. It is the flight-shaped member of a three-model family: AIXM carries aeronautical information, IWXXM carries aviation weather, and FIXM carries the flight itself.
- A model, not a service - FIXM defines what a flight is in data terms. How it gets moved is a SWIM concern.
- Core plus extensions - A stable core model with regional and application extensions, so the US and Europe can diverge where they must without forking the vocabulary.
- XML schema published openly - Releases ship as downloadable schema, which puts it ahead of most aviation standards on retrievability.
- Built for exchange, not for consumption - The audience is another ATM system, and the model reflects that.
FIXM is a good illustration of why an industry can have excellent standards and almost no API surface. The vocabulary is defined once and reused across every participating system, but the consumers are all inside the air traffic management estate. A developer outside it will encounter FIXM only through whatever a data provider chooses to expose on top of it.
Industry: Aviation
Also in the data model catalog
This standard shows up on both sides of the house — as a standard applied in API operations here, and as a data model defining what information exists. Same standard, two lenses.
See it as a data model →