It may pay you all to take a close eye on how WW is disposing of BA Connect now that it has been conveniently used to rub out BAR and has served its purpose.
A proportion of Bacon staff are in a FS pension scheme very similar to NAPS. It too is in deficit and prior to the slashing exercise, a plan had been urgently put in place to fix this. Now we know why there was such time pressure to get this done.
To make Bacon sellable BA have now had to top up the fund by a significant amount in order to keep the regulators off their backs. The problem now is that in order for the scheme to continue to be viable, it requires the new owner to continue to contribute.
Even though the BA top up has meant that the new owner’s (Flybe) required contribution rate would be relatively modest (probably similar to the MP scheme), not surprisingly there appears to be some reluctance on the part of Jim French to take this on. If Flybe do refuse to support the Scheme, then it could be forced into a windup and the creditors would be taken care of in the usual order. So those already receiving a pension get paid first, whilst current serving staff (and those who have left the company but not currently in receipt of a pension) would be at the bottom of the list and might not receive much at all if indeed anything. Meanwhile WW washes his hands of the whole thing.
If we assume the worst and BA avoid their responsibilities and leave Bacon staff high and dry, you can guarantee that it will be used as a template for WW’s next disposal coming to a place nearer and nearer the M25 soon.
Concerned - soon to be destitute Bacon pensioner of Birmingham.