Just wondering how fluid is a career in the aviation industry, for instance everyone states a given amount of years until command and so on, almost as though set in stone. In other industries you may be able to progress quicker within a company, on a meritocratic system, based on performance, attendance record e.t.c. Is it not as such in the aviation sector, there must have arisen times when an individual has been at the company for the time to command yet still incompetant and an oppurtunity handed for someone will less time within the company to leapfrog, or is this not the case and companies have strict guidelines on how long it should take pilots to progress, for reasons which hopefully someone can inform me on.