Harry Nelson, a high-level company safety expert and former vice president of the European jet maker’s flight test department, called for fundamental changes to improve manual-flying proficiency and other cockpit skills that have been de-emphasized over the years.
There have been a number of recent accidents and serious incidents involving a dearth of basic skills and the related possibility of automation not only eroding those skills, but leading us astray on our way to understanding our place on the flight deck. While there's likely a number of canaries in the coal mine along the way, Air France Flight 447 springs to mind as the final straw in that camel's back.
Mr. Nelson told roughly 600 pilots from around the globe that too many veteran aviators have come to view recurrent training sessions as an unwelcome annual or semiannual chore that can endanger their jobs if they perform poorly—rather than an opportunity to fine-tune skills, improve decision making and learn new safety concepts using increasingly realistic simulator technology.
I believe a less punitive, and more supportive recurrent training system would fix this issue (in bold) - not unlike the same consideration given for substance abuse and mental health issues would solve another problem we'll refer to as the other 3 ton gray colored visitor in the sitting room - but that's another story and another conversation in another thread.
Hands on flying is fine, there is really no substitute, and more sim time is also a great idea, but the real issue, I believe, is moving from the punitive to the supportive in all areas. It is the most humane and as it turns out, the most effective way to run an organization - in the long run.