A pilot living in Florida fulfilled her dream over the weekend of being the first female Bermudian pilot to fly a commercial jet into Bermuda.

Emily Siggins was welcomed home on Saturday by family and loved ones after flying a JetBlue Airways flight from Boston to Bermuda.

The 33-year-old, who has been flying for 15 years, was even given a water cannon salute by the Skyport fire department and got to meet Lester Nelson, the chief executive of the Bermuda Airport Authority.

Ms Siggins said she was surprised to have received the warm welcome, especially for her first time back on the island in years.

She added: “I haven’t stopped smiling since I flew back from Bermuda.

“Just seeing everyone who knew me for so long and the water cannon salute is something I’m not going to forget anytime soon.

“The trips can be long, but this made it all worth it.”

Ms Siggins, who operates out of Orlando, Florida, said that she had wanted to be a pilot since she was 4 years old.

She grew up around the profession, with her father, Herbie, being a former Bermuda stations manager for JetBlue Airways and her mother, Jeannie, serving on the board of the BAA.

Ms Siggins received her private pilot’s licence in 2009 when she was 18 years old while studying at the Florida Institute of Technology.

From that point on, she had been living her childhood dream, she said.

Ms Siggins received her Airline Transport Pilot licence and started working for Cape Air in 2016 as the captain of a Cessna 402.

During this time, she flew scheduled passenger flights across the US Midwest in a small prop plane.

Ms Siggins later made the jump to much larger aircraft after being taken in by JetBlue in 2022 as a first officer.

She operated out of Boston during her first year before moving to Orlando and flying throughout the US, Mexico and the Caribbean.

“Every day is different,” Ms Siggins said. “You start the day thinking it’s going to go one way when it could be completely different.

“I love it. It’s all I’ve ever talked about doing since I was little.”

Ms Siggins said that her work was based on seniority, with the most experienced pilots choosing their preferred routes and everyone else choosing what was left.

She described herself as a “senior junior”, explaining that she was in the top 60th percentile at her job.

Ms Siggins said that she did not often get the chance to fly back home, so when she saw the option to fly to Bermuda, she grabbed it.

She added that although she was on island only for about an hour, she capped off her flight by taking her parents from Boston down to Orlando with her for the first time.

Ms Siggins said that there were very few female pilots in her field, with the percentage of women in the US with an Airline Transport Pilot licence being in the “single digits”.

She admitted that responses to being a woman in her field were mixed, with reactions ranging from praise to full-on prejudice.

She said: “I haven’t paid much attention to the negative aspects of it all.”

To combat this, Ms Siggins said that she often tried to show curious children the cockpit in the hope that they would be interested in aviation.

She said: “Seeing the kids come up and see their excitement is really cool because that used to be me.

“I think it’s really important to see someone who looks like you, so you know that you can do this too if you wanted to.”