VinRouge
It works for some people and not for others. You are right there is a no ‘pension pot’
per se but effectively you have a socking great IOU from UK PLC that is underwritten in Law. You also seem to intimate that AFPS75 benefits have been dabbled with? I am unaware of those, to my knowledge the pensions have always paid what people had earned before changes are made to the scheme (like AFPS05 or 15), can you provide a reference to that claim? I am also acutely aware that many Airline employees have had their pensions changed over the years - so this is not an Armed Forces phenomenon.
The leaving rate is no-where near as high as made out - I have no idea why you think people are “pretending the current outflow rate is just a flesh wound”? Again, can you reference me why you think the current rate is so high? Have a look at this:
https://assets.publishing.service.go...7505/11485.pdf
The Voluntary Outflow (VO) rate (page 79) last year was 3.1% and totalled 7.4% - looking at the past 5 years then the average VO is 3.3% (so last year was
below average for the past 5 years) and over the same period the total average was 7.4% (which means that last year we sat at the average for the past 5 years). Going back 7 years to 2012 on other figures then Pilot VO was 2.4% and total was 7.5%. So I can’t see why you think the “current outflow rate” is so high?
What I do agree with is that the current Pilot output ‘Gain to Strength’ is lower than the numbers leaving. But that is nothing to do with pay and conditions, that’s just the mess that is MFTS after changing requirements of SDSR10 and SDSR15 - and some contracting incompetence!
I believe that Bob Viking hits the nail on the head really - do you want jam today or jam tomorrow? Unless you invest every bit of your extra cash that you earn with the airlines then you are unlikely to match the Armed Forces’ Pension Schemes. My Mrs had a £400k ‘pension pot’ (with low-risk investment) prior to the financial crash in 2007 and it is now worth less than a quarter of that! My Govt IOUs stayed good during that period and my AFPS75 paid out as advertised a couple of years later as I slid into FTRS for my last few years of service (whilst earning a new AFPS15 at the same time). Civvy pension pots are notoriously bad for paying out what they claim...at least with the AFPS then the country has to go completely down the plughole (unlikely, even with the current shenanigans going on!).
So as ever, like everything in life, it is “buyer beware” when you decide on your future career path, pension provision and investments. I will be retiring in a couple of years time with a good pension, a fulfilling career that has paid me reasonably and with a feeling that my service has done some good. I could have joined the airlines, taken some extra cash, probably shacked up with a money-grabbing trolley dolly (a financial stressor if ever I saw one, especially if you have kids prior to that!), flown to the same old destinations with the great British unwashed day-in-day-out, be constantly sweating my Class 1 medical every year over 50 and what my pension might actually pay out when I retire. That is why I am convinced that, if I had done the airline thing, then I would have done it with an AFPS IPP or EDP in my back pocket rather than leaving after 12 years with a derisory resettlement grant of £10k(ish) and no pension seen until 68 (for now!).
To quote my French friends “
Petit a petit, l’oiseau fait son nid” - little by little, the bird makes its nest.
