Have to disagree with you a little gys, in as much that "here in Europe" is too generic. As ATC, I had my a moments in the left or right hand seat with a number of European operators, often working the r/t too. I remember in the 70's when shortly after take-off from PMI the Captain gave me his seat and didn't take it back until just before TOD into MAN. I did the nav and r/t all the way. The pax saw me (open cockpit door policy) but in those days they didn't go running to the media. The general attitude was, "you lucky bugger"! This was on a British airline too. Things like that were more the norm than people today want to believe. There were no accidents until the famous Aeroflot case, but that was different since neither pilots were in their seats at the time.