Albert Driver,
The investment of the BA Pension Funds lies with the schemes Trustees. Their Trustee board includes Member Nominated Trustees (MNT's), BA pilots, noinated by their work colleagues.
The scheme's investment is NOT the responsibility of the employer, but that of the Trustees.
Every Direct Benefit scheme will show an increased deficit at it's new actuarial valuation. The main reason is not recent investment performance, indeed in many cases that has been fairly good over the last 2 years, but with new mortality figures that are being used within the pensions industry.
Presuming the last BA valuation was about 3 years ago, new tables which reflect us living much longer into retirement have come into effect. This has a HUGE impact on the valuation of schemes such as BA's, and indeed ALL Final Salary schemes.
30W