Well the people who think SO exp is such a wonderful learning opportunity really only have that experience to reflect on , they never went direct to the RHS.
Compare who is in front after two years say a Luftansa cadet who would have over 1500 hours of 737/A320 FO time , two European winters done several hundred take offs & landings as to a back seater with ANZ, Qant etc
Not much of a contest even less so when you compare it to the BA guys who were RHS in a 767 one year out of flight school. Think you might actually learn more from doing it instead of "watching & observing"
Very few airlines use SOs , and those that do are almost all legacies that have had one or two little issues adapting to private ownership & real world competition, aside from Cathay of course. But then again Cathay don't pay Qantas SO rates of $150k to $260K.
The view of 90 % of airlines is that they want pilots as FOs , zero interest in SOs, jury is pretty much in you might think.
I asked the question earlier why does QF use SOs, on the daily flights to Singapore from Melb/Syd/Brisb when SIA crew these flights two pilots. Pretty short hop you might think, someone should take a look at it, might be able to save the company $10 million pa or so.
Suspect nearly all of the QF flights to Asia are crewed with 3 pilots when the competition uses two pilots.
Yes yes I know they are iconic , they are very special