Our operations manual, like many others, requires us to carry out at least one autoland per month. For obvious reasons most of these are practice autolands. I understand that a long haul operation may have other priorities given the very few landings per pilot. Personally I find the practice helpful, particularly as most of the autolands in the sim focus on failures and go-arounds with minimum conditions. Daylight real conditions can be very different.
The skid marks are hard to believe....I wonder how that almost ninety degree right turn felt at the back of the plane! Welcome to the Oktoberfest's newest ride.