<<Maybe practicing hand flying at the expense of passenger comfort? >> No. I hope that comment was tongue in cheek. Flight data monitoring would obviously pick up hand flying in RVSM for the fun of it.
You transited an area with plenty of storms about / instability. Even with avoiding storms, in the vicinity the air tends to be fairly unstable with shear and temperature changes. The autothrust will be working hard to maintain mach, so the engines can be changing thrust dynamically.
All in all, a normal flight in that region at this time of year.
Last edited by tom775257; 29th Jul 2012 at 10:27.