---- and an open reporting system with a "no-blame" culture within a company which allows pilots to report errors so that others may learn from them. Not all airlines do this, however.
But, as others have already said, whereas airliners get more "safe", other influences within the industry have cut training to the bone and beyond and written Ops Manuals which all but ban manual flying. One well-known legacy carrier has actually banned the use of manual thrust on its A320 fleet unless it's as a result of an abnormal condition. Not good.
Obsessive use of the automatics has degraded pilot skills without a doubt. Many of the younger generations have not been given the skill in the first place; consequently they lack confidence in their ability to fly manually, in some cases justifiably. They need constant retraining and encouragement in the simulator. The expression "children of the magenta line" (or green line for Airbus) is not a joke. To call many of them "pilots" is stretching the commonly understood meaning of the word. They are button-pushers and some of them can be over-loaded beyond their capacity when asked to fly manually on conventional radio navigation aids in the simulator.
In the UK we now have the MPL. A possessor of this licence can now take the controls of a public transport aircraft with as little as 120 hours in his or her logbook. At a time when the FAA is tightening up on fatigue regulations and licencing requirements post-Colgan, Europe is steering 180 degrees out and it's a serious concern. It is a direct result of too many people in decison-making positions who have little or no experience of the nuts and bolts of aviation; too many generalist managers; too many theorists; too many accountants.
The air, like the sea, is unforgiving of fools and the Swiss cheese holes are lining up.