ESA designed EGNOS as the European equivalent of the US WAAS, Wide Area Augmentation System, working closely with the European air traffic management agency Eurocontrol, passing it to the European GNSS Agency, GSA, to run operationally.

Guiding airliners down

First and foremost its primary customer is aircraft. Imagine an airliner coming into land at Charles de Gaulle, or another major European airport, in bad weather. The pilots cannot see their runway through clouds and rain, but without needing any guidance from the ground they can still confidently descend all the way down to just 60 metres’ altitude before needing to make visual contact with the tarmac – thanks to EGNOS.