The overwhelmingly important benefit for airlines which have their own training schemes, whether in-house or outsourced, is quality control. If they are in a position where they must take low-hour pilots, either through size (BA), or market position (BMC), they have to be able to be sure that their new pilots will neither fail their type or line training, nor that they will cost too much to keep on the line. There is no such guarantee with DEPs - having a licence is not the same as being good enough for, say, BA. That's why the RAF always aptitude-tests its applicants, whatever their background.
Other airlines, such as Virgin, insist on a high number of relevant hours, or lots of previous experience with a known high-standard employer (such as the RAF) to achieve the same result.
As for the cost advantages of training schemes, there isn't any! Certainly, training, as with many services, is effectively tax-free for a company, but that's at most a 40% saving on the cost - leaving 60% to be found from income. Nor is training a prestige issue. Most passengers have no idea how their pilots got to be in the front seats (although they may start asking questions if they see a 21 year old pilot exit the flight deck of a 747!), but they very much care about the safety record of the airline they fly on - and so, therefore, do the marketing men. That translates into a need for the best pilots an airline can afford, and a minimal drop-out rate once things get expensive. And so we're back to the beginning!
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