ESSP and LVNL, the civil Air Navigation Services Provider in the Netherlands - have just signed an EGNOS Working Agreement (EWA) as a key step for the implementation of EGNOS-based approach procedures (LPV procedures) at Dutch civil airports.

The agreement was sealed past November 4^th by ESSP Chief Executive Thierry Racaud and LVNL CEO, Paul Riemens.

The EGNOS Working Agreement formalizes the operational and technical modalities between ESSP, the EGNOS service provider, and LVNL in order to support the gradual introduction and use of EGNOS LPV (Localizer Performance with Vertical guidance) approaches at civil aerodromes.Groningen Airport Eelde (GAE) has been the first Dutch international airport to publish an LPV procedure. It was chosen because one of the runway ends was not yet equipped with precision approaches and the airport owner was highly interested to improve accessibility. Locally based operators and flight academies were also keen to extend their operation and training needs.  The implementation of an effective yet “low investment” solution to enhance the airport facilities, led the airport to opt for EGNOS LPV approaches.

Funding from the European GNSS Agency (GSA) through the FP7 ACCEPTA project was a valuable help; additional resources were made available by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment to assure timely implementation. Project management by NLR -the National Aerospace Laboratory in Netherlands -was crucial.  NLR was also responsible for instrument flight procedure design, safety assessment and flight validation where LVNL acted as the independent design review organisation as well as formally engaging with the CAA and NSA to publish the LPV procedures.

Other equipped / Interested EGNOS users in the Netherlands are:

• Martinair Flight Academy (MFA) was the launch customer and will include LPV approaches in their training syllabus.
• Air Charter Europe (ACE) has updated the avionics to use EGNOS in order to improve accessibility to GAE Airport and reliability for their customers.
• Dutch Flight Academy (DFA) was also a member of the project team and is among an increasing number of highly interested operators.

 From its side, ESSP is proud to see that the number of European ANSPs willing to use EGNOS is constantly rising, and many other EGNOS Working Agreements are foreseen to be signed in the following months.