"Manual flying" at many airlines (including the airline in the spotlight) means disconnecting the AP but leaving the FD and ATHR connected.
This is not only of zero value in maintaining, developing, or recovering any piloting skills, in many cases it exposes your passengers to risks.
Flying any SID out of any European airport in this fashion results in one of the two people in the flight deck being lost from the monitoring role, and the second of two being lost as soon as ATC gives a "direct to xxxxx" clearance and his head wobbles down to the CDU. A non-monitored flight deck at 2000 feet is not a good look.
I do recall my brave cockpit companion proudly announcing to me during taxi in LHR that he had decided to hand-fly the Dover departure.. I had to tell ground control to "say again" the taxi clearance as it took a few seconds for me stop laughing at the idea.