Originally Posted by
flyallnite
Today, they are putting it out to LCA's and others to encourage senior FO's to upgrade, because they are facing a 'leadership crisis' in the cockpit. It's a crisis they've created by themselves, by building ridiculous trips and monthly rosters for the domestic narrobody categories and then pushing those to the limits. There's only so much you can do to an international pilot. I've talked with lots of new captains that regret their upgrade and are looking to go back to the right seat on a widebody.
I'm a LCA and have never had anyone ask me to encourage senior FOs to upgrade. I even called my chief to see if I'm missing something, nope. No one, in management, is doing that. Might there be a few individual LCAs telling guys to upgrade, sure.
You are kidding yourself that there is a crisis of leadership. Almost without fail the guys who do well in captain upgrade are the junior guys who bid it early. The ones who struggle are the long term wide body FOs who spent the last ten years worried about fish or steak for dinner and paid zero attention to how the captain was running the flight deck. Let them go back to the right seat of a wide body. The younger guys do just fine.