Shortfuel
My point is that if (lack of) basic flying skills is found to be a contributing factor of this incident then it should be a good opportunity for the training dpt to tackle this automation culture.
This is not about automation and flight directors when you land on edge lighting. This is the ability to fly a big jet, which for the past 4 years we fly to JFK, we have not had anyone land on the edge lighting. As for your experience, A320/A330, your time will come to fly a longer jet on a longer route, and automation is helpful at the end of a ULR flight. Other things help even more like PAPI/VASI/ILS etc...
Not every ILS is capable of an autoland. If I remember correctly, JFK22R has a runway course of 225 and localizer of 222 degrees compared to 22L which has 225 runway and LOC 225. Autolanding on an off set course will shorten your career quickly. It is about understanding automation and handling a big jet. The runways seem narrower, the bigger the jet and holding center-line is of utmost importance. Removing the flight director and autothrust ain't going to help in this case.
If you think that removing the automation will improve your sense of direction of center-line, then you are mistaken. If anything, autothrust helped them get that far, but as for the direction of flight, that was up to the flying pilot. According to the AIMS, this was an A340-500 and I would suspect things could be worse had it been a A340-600.