Originally Posted by john_tullamarine
I suggest that, overall, there is a cost argument to emphasise the automatics.
I have read this argument also in another thread.
Frankly I would be amazed if flying automatically all the time would turn out to be cheaper! I don't expect there to be any significant difference in the costs, but if asked, I would expect it to be the other way around.
Handflying doesn't stop us from flying FMGS calculated optimum speeds or taking advantage of calculated optimum descent point to respect some alt constraint further down the approach.
On the contrary, I believe that the fact that we are very often flying (shorter) visual approaches, saves the company a lot of money!