Just watch this space; it is all about to change again for such organisations as the UK CAA are becoming rather alarmed at the lack of manual skills being displayed by some of our brethern.
Seems that way. Flight International 6-12 October has an article by David Learmont which states that Thomson Airways (previously Thomsonfly) has carried out eye-tracking tests on crews. The tests have discovered that a few pilots' instrument scans are seriously deficient, even when their performance would have been judged, by an examiner on the flight deck, to have been good. The article goes on to say the implication is that some airline crews, possibly at all airlines, are surviving because nothing goes wrong on their watch.
That is nothing new. No doubt most airlines have their fair share of pilots who scrape through proficiency and instrument rating tests simply because most of the tests are on automatic pilot. With probably at least 95 percent of all jet airline ops flown with full use of automatics, and very few significant aircraft technical defects requiring superior flying skill, the dodgy pilots get away with it.
The Thomson Airways "eye-tracking" only proves something that most simulator instructors have known for years. And that is there are a few seriously incompetent captains and first officers flying the airways quietly protected by first class, reliable, and almost fool-proof automatic pilots.