I don’t really understand the logic re: state pension. Any pilot who is relying on the state pension to fund their retirement has either had too many divorces or got some terrible financial advice
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Reacher19 - Consider an alternative scenario. Pilot comfortable in UK airline, aged in his forties, has a command, married to first wife and has three kids at school, mortgage about half paid, pension pot filling slowly, some savings towards family holiday, road tax, 'extras' for children at school, school trips.
Monday morning having a short sleep-in due late back from trip the previous night, wife wakes you up to tell you that your company has just gone into liquidation.
Several weeks frantically searching for work, eventually offered job as the most junior FO with another company, wife also looking for work, kids school 'extras' and trips stopped for now, savings pretty much all gone, looking to downsize house to a less expensive area and reduce the mortgage, fighting liquidators for the pension fund. Two or three years of scrimping and saving, command on the horizon, then Bang! company couldn't make CAA liquidity requirement by 31 March, company in receivership. Some six months later, now in the three bedroom semi, wife has found some part time work, quality of life is poor, pension fund still in dispute, savings all gone, all hopes of a decent retirement dashed. Pilot's CV sent to upwards of twenty five companies, five actually acknowledged it but no prospects offered, pilot trying hard to sell home conservatories and green houses for lousy wages. Should this pilot ever find work flying again you can bet he will keep going until he drops as well as take all the state pension he can get. Had you been around Gatwick, Luton or Manchester in the eighties and nineties you would easily recognise this situation which was far more common than extra wives and sadly not without its share of suicides.