Sergio Pila, the pilot of the Binter airline, is recognized among regular passengers on flights in Lanzarote for his atypical and fun way of enlivening the journey. When this man from Cantabria decided to become a pilot, he accumulated all the money he could, sold even his motorcycle, and decided to bet everything on a dream.
"In the end, these are quite vocational professions, and since I was little, airplanes have always caught my attention a lot, but I wasn't lucky enough to be able to study it before because it's quite expensive, and I had to wait until I was 29 years old to be able to pay for it out of my own pocket," he says in an interview with La Voz.
It was then that he began working in airport handling while studying to become a pilot. By the time he started his studies until he was able to complete them, he was already 34 years old. Once he officially became a pilot, he began providing taxi services in airplanes. "Let's say they are smaller planes that people hire to be able to travel on the route they want, and then I was lucky enough to join Binter," he explains.
After almost ten years of experience on a plane, Sergio Pila says that his company is constantly growing, and for the workers, it is "wonderful." In addition to flying on inter-island trips through the Canary Islands, he also directs routes to other destinations such as Funchal or Marrakech.
The lives of dozens of people in your hands
Regarding how the first times are experienced when you realize that there are dozens of people whose lives depend on you, the Binter pilot says that "the first times he was in front of a plane, he did it as a first officer," or what could be translated in everyday terms as a co-pilot, "and since you are with people with a lot of experience, you are more concerned with doing everything correctly." It wasn't until he became a commander that he felt all that weight of responsibility on his shoulders.
During this week, in a conversation with the first officer, Sergio Pila reflected: "This is a job that we don't really give the value it has because right now we have 72 people back there who have families, who have children, babies, and I am now much more aware than when I started of the responsibility we have in the back of the plane, which is very important obviously and is what makes it such a demanding job as that of an airline pilot."
Flying in bad weather
Regarding flying on alert days, Sergio Pila explains that "flying around here is wonderful, except for the days when the weather is a little more stressful for the entire crew, because people also live with quite a bit of fear when getting on the plane. Whether you want to or not, it is a loss of control, you are leaving everything to two people who are up there in front, who close the door and you don't know what they are doing," says the worker.
On days when the wind is stronger, Sergio Pila tells travelers what the pilots are doing, what the cabin crew is doing, and what is going to happen on the flight. "I always do it once we have taken off so that people can't get off anymore, so to speak, to give it a funny touch," he jokes. The aviator defends that the commander's voice is heard, that passengers see that "you are calm, that you are calm, Hey, look, today we are a little unlucky with the weather," he exemplifies.
The commander says that, on occasions, he likes to joke with the first officer and say some detail to alleviate the tension or make some mention of special days such as Mother's Day. "That makes people relax a lot, and, for example, just yesterday there were many passengers who wanted to come and congratulate us because they saw the wind that was blowing and said, hey, with the wind that was blowing we got on very scared and we got off laughing and delighted. For me, that fills me with a little pride, because I also know that it helps people a lot and they are very relaxed," he narrates during a flight directed during the pre-alert for wind.
Binter base in Lanzarote
A year and three months ago, the airline Binter opened a base in Lanzarote and with it brought two planes to offer a flight first thing in the morning that goes to Gran Canaria and another flight to Tenerife North. According to Sergio Pila, in that modification, around 30 people moved to the island, including pilots and cabin crew.
Among them, Sergio Pila also moved, who traveled to the island of Lanzarote with his wife. His two children were born in Lanzarote. However, this man from Cantabria had previously passed through other islands such as Tenerife or Gran Canaria.

Originally from the northern peninsula, Sergio Pila and his family have built a home in Lanzarote and do not plan to change their residence for the moment. "Being from large provincial capitals, it is easier for you to dedicate yourself to your profession and your passion, which is flying, in your home. For those of us who are from a city as fantastic as Santander but much smaller, where there is no airline there or anything, you know as soon as you decide to become an airline pilot that you will not be able to live in your home. I'm not complaining at all because I'm in a wonderful place," he confesses.
"Normally we work eight-hour days and then distributed with breaks, we cannot exceed 90 flight hours per month because it is understood that you are very overloaded with work and you have to stop." In addition, Sergio Pila says that sometimes it is difficult for him to take a plane to go on vacation or to travel to Santander to see his family. "It's like being told that on your day off you have to go to your job."
"What I like most about flying is when the air traffic controllers authorize us to take off, we are aligned with the runway and we put power to the plane and lift all that weight off the ground, with the people, with the suitcases, with what the plane itself weighs. For me, it is still a truly unique moment and look at how many takeoffs I have in my life as a pilot."
Regarding the work dynamics that pilots must comply with, Sergio Pila says that they must face "a lot of restrictions" with the main objective that the driver is "as rested as possible. One of the things that the commander is obliged to do is to ask the rest of the crew if they have rested well, if they have eaten, if they have slept well, because the law requires it of us."
"Before being able to study to become a pilot, you have to pass a fairly exhaustive medical examination with a psychologist and all that. In addition, it is Aesa, which controls aviation in Spain, which is going to say whether or not you can study and get your pilot's license. Even so, once a year we have to pass a fairly tough medical examination that has been accompanied for a couple of years by a psychological examination, also so that you have all the skills at one hundred percent."
One passenger and 19 police officers
"A funny anecdote that happened to us recently was on a flight from Lanzarote to Tenerife North where a passenger, who we don't know very well what happened to him, started messing with the travelers in front of him and insulting the crew. What he didn't know is that there was a group of 19 police officers dressed in civilian clothes inside the plane. We were aware of this because the cabin is always informed when members of the State Security Forces are traveling."
When the purser, the head of the cabin, called Sergio and told him the situation, he couldn't contain his laughter. "I thought: you've had the worst flight on Binter to put on this circus," he recalls. After accepting the agents' request to intervene, the National Police subdued the passenger. "It is true that at first you find out that there are two or three passengers who have had a bad time because they have been insulted for no reason, but then, the smile that the entire crew even the police put on when we landed and they came to talk to us. The truth is that we all had a good time except for the detainee."