"BACON / OS were never part of the LHR mainline operation"
er nor are BMI.....at the moment, the fact is that BA has stated that ALL pilots must go through selection (this was the reason given to the OS pilots), even though mainline were recruiting they made these pilots redundant if not "selected" for mainline. If BA do not impose this on other pilot bodies (and lets face it BMI pilots are a complete unknown to the mainline HR dept) then the OS pilots have a very strong legal case, possibly even the BACON pilots too.
I understand that it was due to "training issues" with some former CF pilots that this policy was introduced, personally i think its rubbish and it would have been very simple to allow OS , BACON and now BMI pilots to access mainline, however HR are very powerful and have to justify their position
