SLF question if you don't mind: If we accept the premise that hand-flying skills are on the wane across the industry, what options do we the travelling public have besides buying a ticket and hoping for the best? Do you think it's possible to identify airlines where the pilots - for whatever reason, be it amount/type of experience or company operating procedures - are IN GENERAL likely to have better (or less degraded) hand flying skills than at others?
For example, I soon need to fly between Manchester and Copenhagen. I have two options: SAS, operating their classic MD80 series, or easyjet (with the recruitment policies well-discussed on this forum) operating their A319s. Would I be justified in feeling, as a passenger, that I might be in better hands, should anything go t1ts up, with the old school SAS guys on the old school aircraft, than with easyjet and its relatively young, low time pilots in the glass cockpit? Or is that just a totally unfair and unjustified feeling?
I'd love to know what choice you industry guys would make if you were putting your wife/kids on the flight. If you tell me there's no real difference, I believe you. But I think if there is...even a marginal difference in favour of the legacy pilots, then it ain't worth that £20, £30 you save to go orange.