My name is Livia, I’m 31 years old, and I’m a turboprop first officer from Portugal flying across Southern Europe. My love for aviation began long before I understood what it meant to be a pilot. My grandfather was a ground handler at a small coastal airport, and when my parents visited him, I spent hours watching airplanes taxi in the shimmering summer heat. I grew up on the smell of Jet A1 and sea breeze—so falling in love with flying felt inevitable.
I still remember the first time I left the ground. I was 4 years old, strapped into the right seat of a friend’s old Cessna 150. My legs couldn’t reach the pedals, but my hands were firmly on the yoke, convinced I was “helping” with the takeoff. That moment never left me.
At 16, I joined a gliding club, spending every spare weekend sweeping hangars, towing gliders, and saving every euro I could. My family supported me in every way they could emotionally, but financially, things were tight. We simply didn’t have the means for flight school.
So, at 20, I made the hardest decision of my life—I moved alone to Northern Europe to work in hospitality, hoping to save enough to start flying lessons. It took years of long shifts, language barriers, and missing home, but in 2019, I finally enrolled in my PPL. Every takeoff reminded me why I was fighting so hard.
By 2022, after countless sacrifices, sleepless nights, and a lot of determination, I completed my ATPL exams. In 2023, I received the phone call that changed everything: my first airline offered me a position as a First Officer. I cried alone in my tiny apartment because I knew that little girl in the Cessna would have been proud.
I am endlessly grateful to my family, friends, and mentors who believed in me even when I doubted myself. This journey wasn’t easy, but it was worth every step.
To every future woman in aviation reading this:
Trust your path. Trust your passion.
People will question you, underestimate you, even tell you it can’t be done.
Smile, thank them—and then prove them wrong.
The sky has room for all of us.
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