How long do you work as a first officer before being promoted to captain?

Question

How long do you work as a first officer before being promoted to captain?

Answer 1

depends on the airline.. air transport license must have minimum of three  thousand hours flight. a captain must have simulator time in that model aircraft and more hours than the first officerl. ok.

Answer 2

As stated, it depends on your seniority. If there are 10 first officers ahead of you, 10 Captains must retire or move on to another job first. If you can find out how many Captains are nearing retirement age and how many first officers are ahead of you, you may be able to compute the answer.

Answer 3

It can depend on the experience you had when you began as first officer,  your record in the company, and on recommendations from captains you have flown with.  

It is not always a matter of seniority.  

An FO can upgrade before others who are senior.

Answer 4

Very tricky to predict, and completely different from one airline to another.  In general, the larger the company the longer it will take.

And some pilots never do reach the command chair.  It depends on seniority, but an employment problem or a logbook problem can hold you back indefinitely.

The closer you get to the actual hiring process, the easier it will be to get an idea of what is going on in a given airline company.

Answer 5

It's based on seniority, which is based on hours and how long you have been with the airline.

Once you go with another airline, your seniority is erased and you start all over.

Answer 6

I'm not sure who went through with the thumbs down machine, but Comair, Eferrell and Aviophage all had correct answers, so I gave you all a thumbs up!

Anyway, I have a couple of friends who started flying for Continental Express (now Expressjet) at the same time.  One is now flying for Expressjet as a Captain after years of duty as a FO.  The other is now flying as FO on the 757 for mainline Continental, having made Captain on the ERJs shortly after he started.  Just an example of how difficult it is to figure out how quick the road is for advancement.