Steely recently stated at a training meeting that they have not had one failure of a pilot coming from a European LOCO, while guys coming with thousands of hours on Classic 747s have struggled.
Getting through the initial is one thing........upgrade to command is another. The 22 yr old LCC chap who paid for his training and uniform, flying 400nm sectors (no offense to the LCC guys) is not par with GV Capt. flying across the Pacific at FL550 on a regular basis or an A340/744 guy with operational experience in virtually every continent. Hence, their career progression path should not be the same.
So if you are going to set a silly 55t rule then you better expand on it, giving a bit more credit to previous command and/or heavy experience. That would be more equitable to the parties involved and advantages to the company.
But, that is just my opinion
