A device for aiding the following of an airport route by an aircraft includes: an onboard system of optical sensors; means providing the current position of the aircraft; a database having topological information for the airport; a recognition system providing, on the basis of the video images arising from the system of optical sensors, data characteristics of the airport route portion, making it possible to identify a simple primitive representative of the route portion followed; and a processing computer. The processing computer extracts, from the database, a succession of simple geometric shapes representing the airport route and of the same nature as the primitives arising from the recognition system, compares the succession of shapes with the primitives, and validates or invalidates the route followed by the aircraft as a function of the result of the comparison.