Certain PhD, CEO of the airline for last 12 years and former AEA chairman has told me: "Your job as a pilot is very easy, you just follow procedures and if something out of the ordinary happens, there are checklists for everything". He wasn't in the joking mood at the time.
So that's how you get the captains when there are no first officers; everyone reads the rulebooks, complies with them and they're good captains for that.
