This sounds quite interesting. But putting insurance premiums aside etc, how does the FO or SFO get practice on that particular airport in prepaation for Captaincy.
If indeed there are reasons why it is Capatain only, then surely one of those reasons is due to the difficulty of the approach /landing. Does this meant that a Trainee Captain needs to fly with a Senior Captain to that particular airport just so he can get "signed off"?
I guess I'm coming at it from the angle that if an airport is Captain only, then a FO with X amount of thousand hours on type will not have a great time on his first landing as a Captain becasue he never had the practice.
I don't know if Kai Tak was a Captain only but surely an FO with 10'000 hours who was promoted to Captain would struggle with Kai Tak if he had never flew the approach previously in his career.