It's often said that BA has sufficient cash reserves to cover the debt in one payment, but my understanding is that the cash reserve was not built up to pay off debt. So all that money's simply not available to use.
BA has been paying off other debt at the rate of £1bn per year for the past few whilst
at the same time making more profit than any other airline
and accumulating the cash reserves you state. On that basis, they can pay off the pension debt totally in a year without touching the cash reserve and whilst still making significant profits.
A debt is a debt. Why should the pension debt be considered differently to any other debt?
The other claim I hear is that managers are only thinking of their bonuses in trying to come to a negotiated settlement. But surely if there is a reduction in pension, then those same managers would be affected as well?
Many of the senior managers have already reached the government's pension cap therefore their pensions won't be significantly affected, if at all. The only way they can be rewarded for company performance is in the form of bonuses. According to the published accounts last year, the maximum bonus which can be awarded is 250% of salary.