BermudAir first officer Thays Emilly Silva describes aviation as “like a drug”.

“You get addicted,” the 30-year-old said. “Some days I feel tired because of the schedule, but after two or three days off, I miss flying.”

Ms Silva said there are more female pilots than ever before, however, their numbers are still low, comprising only 4 per cent of pilots globally.

In flight school in her native Brazil, only 70 out of the 2,000 students were female.

“Now there is at least one woman in every pilot class,” she said.

Flying commercial planes for airline Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras she sometimes encountered prejudice.

“People would stop by the cockpit after landing, see me and say ‘who landed the plane? That was the captain right?’.” she said.

Sometimes they were kidding, but often they were serious.

“My whole career has been like that,” Ms Silva said. “It gives me the strength to demonstrate that I can do this, not just me, but all women.”

Some aviation experts attribute the lack of women in the industry to a dearth of opportunities for them.

The frequent nights away from home, can also be difficult for women with children. Many female pilots drop out of the industry when they hit 30.

“Family is the hardest part about it,” Ms Silva said. “At BermudAir there is usually a quick turn around and we can sleep at home. In Brazil, I would be away from home 20 days of the month. I have also passed a lot of Christmases and New Years working.”

Her BermudAir colleague, Isra Furbert is another rare entity in the aviation industry, a Bermudian flight attendant, one of only six on the island.

“I dreamt of being a flight attendant from the time I was little,” Ms Furbert said. “There was just something about them that I admired. They always looked so beautiful in their uniforms.”

Living in Bermuda, however, she did not think being a flight attendant was a possibility without moving overseas.

“The job at BermudAir dropped in my lap at the perfect time,” Ms Furbert said. “I had just graduated from college. I studied carpentry, and started my own business after Covid-19, Nail’d It Carpentry. I still run that.”

She did flight attendant training in Toronto, Canada last July for three weeks.

“You do a lot about safety and security,” she said. “You have to take tests and go through drills to get everything just right.”

They did frequent drills to prepare for unexpected situations such as emergency landings and sudden decompression.

“It was intense,” Ms Furbert said. “You have to know what you need to do, step by step. It scared me, at first, because there is so much to remember. However, the more I read over the material, the more comfortable I got with it.”

So far, she has not used her emergency training on BermudAir.

When the airline first took to the skies there were only a handful of passengers.

“We thought it was great when there were ten passengers, because we were in double digits,” she said. “Now we have 50 passengers and up.”

One of the rewards of the job for Ms Furbert is inspiring other people.

She gets social media messages all the time from people asking how they could get into the job.

“Some people say they had always been hesitant or scared to pursue a job like this, but seeing me do it makes them want to do it,” she said. “That brings tears to my eyes.”