That said BA earned a hell of a black mark when it chose to divert to Heathrow rather than Stansted or even Gatwick when its engine was on fire [1]. Not as much as when Air France decided to divert from Lebanon to Damascus in the middle of a civil war rather than Cyprus because it was cheaper [2]
[1] https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ba-flight-returns-to-... [2] https://globalvoices.org/2012/08/26/france-an-epic-flight-fr...
After declaring an emergency, if they landed at Heathrow, that was at the pilot's discretion or due to limiting factors like runway length at Gatwick and the weight of their plane. The article is light on detail but they circled over Kent as well, so the pilots must have thought it was safe after shutting down the engine. Not sure what the "black mark" is exactly.
Gatwick and Stansted can take any plane just as easily as Heathrow, but has less on ground resources to fix the plane.
I'd guess they knew it was safe and it's easier to deal with a plane full of pax at your originating airport than diverting to STN (where there's no BA ops) or LGW (BA have ops here so could have worked).
BA did fly from STN in 2017, at the time of the incident - they served short haul tourist routes like PMI, AGP, FLR, IBZ.
And as a frequent flyer of European airlines for intercontinental flights, the quality of the flight experience pales in contrast with Qatar.
You don't know how good the pilot is until it gets you out of a really bad situation that the AP cannot manage. Most airline pilots do very little actual flying: takeoffs mostly, and depending on how new the plane is and the type of runways they land on, some just use auto-land systems.
You're most likely to find more experienced pilots flying small commercial planes without AP than actual proper airline pilots.
And that's precisely why I also care about pilot quality before how pleasant the service is. The moment something goes awry with the automated systems you better have a good crew flying your plane than a crew who's much more reliant on instruments and automation.
It's like insurance, I'd rather choose to never have to use it but the moment I need it you bet I'll be very grateful that I preferred a very good coverage than the cheapest option out there.
The entire rubric of reporting deviations early and often was developed as it was identified as a major cause of crashes in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
Per this particular incident: It is a big deal the FO screwed up. It's a bigger deal that the screwup was not reported, as it's an indication that the culture of the airline is more concerned with reputation than keeping everyone alive.
Autoland is not the common landing method unless you're in very poor visibility. Pilots DO use it in good weather or other situations, but that's mostly to keep current on their certifications for its use. For those who are curious, look up Category III (Cat III) or 0/0 approaches. Those are the ones autoland are intended for.
Secondly, amongst pretty much every common definition of experience "small commercial plane" operators are almost always less experienced than airline pilots, at least in the US. The reason for this is simple, to be a commercial pilot you need 250 hours of flight experience. To be an airline pilot you need 1500. Small commercial businesses are commonly where pilots pick up the experience needed to even apply to be an airline pilot.
Other common sources: 1) Flight instructing (also a small commercial gig), 2) The military, 3) Aviation schools and lots of $$$$