Absolute cr*p about age discrimination. Wiggy is entirely correct. I think BA want to avoid in the future what is coming to fruition now thanks to many hundreds of same age cadets who are going to be on the top pay scale for decades, and then causing a retirement bulge which is difficult to manage. I think they would prefer a wider spread of ages to avoid this. BA has absolutely no reason to prefer younger candidates. If you make the grade, you're in. Simples.
I think older candidates need realistic career goals and need to be happy that they may never get a command or at least it will be a long time.