A hold line awareness system for alerting an occupant of an aircraft that the aircraft is approaching a hold line at an airport. In one broad aspect the invention includes an airport database located on an aircraft. The airport database is configured to store location information for a plurality of hold lines at the airport. A positioning system is located on the aircraft. The positioning system is configured to determine the aircraft location. A processor is located on the aircraft and is operatively connected to the airport database and the positioning system. The processor is configured to calculate the distance between the aircraft location and a hold line and provide a processor alerting output signal if the distance is less than a predetermined value. A sensory effector is located on the aircraft and operatively connected to the processor for receiving the processor alerting output signal and providing a tactile alert to an occupant in response thereto. In another broad aspect, a real time feature detecting system is utilized instead of the airport database. The feature detecting system is configured to detect features defining a plurality of hold lines at the airport and for determining the distance of the aircraft from a detected hold line.