diff --git a/asterix-app/pom.xml b/asterix-app/pom.xml
index 6dbc506..e3f0960 100644
--- a/asterix-app/pom.xml
+++ b/asterix-app/pom.xml
@@ -81,6 +81,9 @@
 				<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
 				<version>2.8</version>
 				<configuration>
+				        <systemPropertyVariables>
+                                           <skipSlowTests>true</skipSlowTests>
+				        </systemPropertyVariables>
 					<!-- doesn't work from m2eclipse, currently <additionalClasspathElements> 
 						<additionalClasspathElement>${basedir}/src/main/resources</additionalClasspathElement> 
 						</additionalClasspathElements> -->
diff --git a/asterix-app/src/test/resources/runtimets/testsuite.xml b/asterix-app/src/test/resources/runtimets/testsuite.xml
index d7b4c75..3d1406e 100644
--- a/asterix-app/src/test/resources/runtimets/testsuite.xml
+++ b/asterix-app/src/test/resources/runtimets/testsuite.xml
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
  !-->
 <test-suite xmlns="urn:xml.testframework.asterix.ics.uci.edu" ResultOffsetPath="results" QueryOffsetPath="queries" QueryFileExtension=".aql">
   <test-group name="flwor">
-    <test-case FilePath="flwor">
+    <test-case FilePath="flwor" category="slow">
       <compilation-unit name="at00">
         <output-dir compare="Text">at00</output-dir>
       </compilation-unit>
diff --git a/asterix-test-framework/src/main/java/edu/uci/ics/asterix/testframework/context/TestCaseContext.java b/asterix-test-framework/src/main/java/edu/uci/ics/asterix/testframework/context/TestCaseContext.java
index a52ede0..a416144 100644
--- a/asterix-test-framework/src/main/java/edu/uci/ics/asterix/testframework/context/TestCaseContext.java
+++ b/asterix-test-framework/src/main/java/edu/uci/ics/asterix/testframework/context/TestCaseContext.java
@@ -157,9 +157,10 @@
         }
 
         private void addContexts(File tsRoot, TestSuite ts, List<TestGroup> tgPath, List<TestCaseContext> tccs) {
+	    boolean skipSlow = System.getProperty("skipSlowTests") != null;
             TestGroup tg = tgPath.get(tgPath.size() - 1);
             for (TestCase tc : tg.getTestCase()) {
-		if (tc.getCategory() != CategoryEnum.SLOW) {
+		if (skipSlow && tc.getCategory() != CategoryEnum.SLOW) {
 		    tccs.add(new TestCaseContext(tsRoot, ts, tgPath.toArray(new TestGroup[tgPath.size()]), tc));
 		}
             }