Originally Posted by Hacker15e

You can't think of the wings as being symbolic of an aviation achievement, like you probably do of military wings.

Instead, they're simply symbolic of your employment at a particular shop. When you are given them varies between where you work.

At the regional airline I worked at, I was given the wings unceremoniously by my the examiner after my LOE simulator session at the very end of training.

At the major I work at, I was given them after only a few weeks of non-flying indoctrination training (basically still at the beginning of training -- I hadn't even see the inside of a simulator yet) in a fancy-ish formal ceremony that family/friends are invited to attend.

Overall, it is simply a uniform item that socially has less value and meaning than in the military.