I saw a blog, maybe I didn't read it correctly, but 7 out of 12 FO's failed to upgrade. Can this be true? What is the fail rate for FO's when upgrading?

 

Which airline?

 

Air Tahoma

 

Possible. Many regionals generally consider FO's to be "seat meat", so they'll do whatever they have to do to get them in the seat as quickly and cheaply as possible. They're assuming that the PIC can handle everything himself.

But when it comes time to upgrade, those same companies know that a single hull-loss crash will put any regional out of business (except SKW, they would possibly be allowed one freebie due to their size. Or maybe not, depending on how the media handled it).

So they are a little more careful about who they put in the left seat, since he's likely going to be flying single-pilot jet at some point.

If you're worried, stay in the books after new-hire training, watch your CA's and ask a lot of questions. You should never not know why a CA is doing something, or wonder why he's not doing something that you think he should be doing.

Unlike my peers, you won't have 5+ years in the right seat to learn by osmosis. If you upgrade in 18 months, you'll BARELY have enough time to learn what you need to know to survive.