As I understand, WGA upgrades are “merit based”, not seniority based. I don’t think they’re gonna take some dude that’s flown a few years at a regional and in 6 months upgrade him to a widebody Captain flying all over the world with a bunch of other less experienced pilots.

If you don’t have the worldwide experience…you need to get it before you’re in the hot seat. Ever been through the bamboo triangle and dealt with that mess? What about 5 mins from China airspace and Urumqi isn’t answering your radio calls? Do you proceed into China or not? Ever been to a place that gives you altitudes in QFE? That would be a bad one to be surprised by while IMC in the mountains at night. How about something simple…like a last minute(less than 10 miles out) runway change at NRT to the short runway while you have a brand new FO flying…do you accept it or go around and possibly put you in a bad fuel situation? Did you even brief the possibility?

Until you’ve done some of this type of flying….you don’t know what you don’t know.