Time to command is 10-15 years.
Bucket and spade, £4000 is pretty good now.
Most airlines want 20-30K up front with £1200 a month take home. As i have stated before I've been here 10 years and can't see a better place to go. To stay in the UK it's BA, Virgin and Thomson. I would take a significant pay cut to go to Virgin and BA would put me on the bottom of a 15 year to command list.
From what I see this is one of the best offers of the last few years and its only going to get worse.