Is it possible that Nats wanted this year's profit to be as low as possible to quote to us i.e £60m in order to scare us into accepting these changes, loans paid back early would certainly have affected this figure, and obviously cost of relocating TC etc. They can then use this £60m figure and say that there is no way they can afford to pay double this to cover the underlying cost of the pension. They knew profits would take a hit this year because of the cost of relocating TC, EGLL tower etc, so payback a few loans owed to our shareholders to massage the figures even more in their favour, combine this then with already forecast problems with the pension funding, and bingo, scare us into not only closing the fund to new entrants but cutting ours as well.
Maybe being cynical, but Barron and Co may have had this in the pipeline since he joined, he has good form on destroying pensions and was probably taken on by the board to to exactly this.