It needed to be said, and more power that it came from an Airbus official.
Weaning pilots off automatics requires a carrot and stick approach.
If they know that 50 or more percent of their next simulator will require demonstration of hand flying skill, maybe pilots will practice more on the line.
Instructors and examiners need to up the ante by creating realistic LOFT scenarios where the automatics and instruments are degraded. While I agree that such exercises should initially be non jeopardy, at some point each pilot who purports to be a professional must be required to fly with no automatics and limited instrumentation to a cut and dried pass/fail standard.
Because airlines are never likely to allow more than 8 to 12 hours simulator per pilot per year, and because within that time checks to the regulatory standard are required, actual training time plays second fiddle to ticking boxes on the check form.
It would be helpful if we could move away from having to repeat exercises at each session which are fairly rare in real life and not all that difficult to execute. For example, the old V1 cut and emergency descent are now so well known by most that doing it in a two year cycle should be enough. On the other hand, flight with unreliable airspeed and dealing with severe icing situations could be worth doing at more frequent intervals, perhaps annually. Operators whose crews rarely experience severe icing may disagree with this, but they are possibly more at risk in a real event than those who are accustomed to it.
In other words, tailor the training to the situation rather than use a one size fits all approach to satisfy the regulator. Of course this would require cooperation from the regulator.