I alway thought that the point of BACON was to move some short haul to City in order to free up slots for long haul at Hounslow International.
Surely, now they have gotten ahold of all those juicy BMI slots, they no longer need BACON at City to free up slots at Hounslow.........
Whilst it was planned that some short-haul capacity would move from LHR to LCY to free up slots for long-haul expansion pre bmi, CityFlyer still has a purpose in consolidating BA's position in London and serving the corporate market in Canary Wharf.
I understand short-haul yields at LCY are good and arguably it's a rare success story where BA has grown steadily and managed to outgrow the competition outside of the LHR hub.