In all honesty northern boy, I don't believe stansdead was issuing a 'blanket comment' so to speak. As you correctly imply, our lives in aviation are mostly dictated by our timing and circumstance. Luck will always have large part to play. However, speaking purely in terms of lo-cos, I would tend to agree with stansdead. With the rates of expansion that the likes of Easy, Ryan, Wizz, Air Berlin etc have encountered in the last 5 or more years, opportunities to make the left hand seat have been plentiful. Obviously particular lo-cos have had a greater demand than others, however in terms of my airline, once the pre-requist JAR25 time has been met and the required standard/grading is achieved during line checks, recurrent sim training and checking, then each FO has had a crack at the command course. Many fail, mostly due to lack of preparation; however a close second reason is largely down to ability. Keeping this is mind and to concur with stansdead, many of the older FOs at our lot have had a few shots at the command. They aren't being failed because of their age, i can assure you because if you are good enough you will pass. And before you can accuse me of generalising, there are a number of examples of our more 'mature' FOs making the grade when opportunity knocked.