The Met Office is the UK’s National Weather Service and one of only two World Area Forecast Centres (WAFC) for Civil Aviation, as designated by ICAO. As a WAFC, the Met Office is responsible for providing global information on meteorological hazards to airlines for flight planning.
 
The Met Office is also responsible for providing global digital forecasts of temperature and wind to airlines for flight planning. The Met Office is also a Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre, providing forecasts of the movement of volcanic ash to ensure the safety of air traffic in the North Atlantic.

The Met Office is participating in FLYSAFE because it believes that flight safety will be significantly enhanced by the provision of digital data directly to the aircraft cockpit, provided that there are tools in the cockpit to enable the pilot to interpret the data quickly, accurately and in a way that enables decisions and actions to be undertaken quickly and confidently.
 
The Met Office will lead workpackage 2, which will develop Weather Information Management Systems (WIMSs) to provide meteorological data which is pertinent, accurate, concise and timely to the problems of meteorological hazards. The Met Office will participate in the development of all the WIMSs and will also contribute to the provision of routine weather data which will address those few hazards not covered by WIMSs.
 
The Met Office expects that its role as a WAFC will be enhanced by its participation in FLYSAFE and ultimately the Met Office will be able to deliver cost effective digital services to aircraft in flight. Civil Aviation is one of the Met Office’s biggest customers and participation in FLYSAFE will enable it to maintain and develop that position.