The plain fact of the mater is, NATS as a company can afford to pay more into the pension than it does at the moment - easily.
Management are lying if they try to claim that they are not trying to get away with paying as little as possible. One of Barrons main objectives in his employment is to ensure the financial health of NATS - he has admitted this on NATSNET and it's a valid enough objective; however financial health can be looked at in several ways - for starters cynics may say that it is to pave the way to a sell off, others will say it's basic business sense.
Whatever the reason, it is a fact that Barron wants to get the cheapest deal he can on this issue (and no doubt in the upcoming pay talks). Management talks of NATS going to the wall if they have to pay a penny more towards pensions is complete and utter rubbish - total scaremongering and not supported by the company accounts.
It just means that we do not post such big profits (in this alleged 'not for profit' company) and dividends to the Airline Group (who again are not supposedly in this for any profit), will be cut or taken away.
The AG invested in this deal to ensure that they continued to get a world class service (not a profit) - that is the dividend they were promised through investment - not a piddling bung every year through the shares they hold. It's time they and NATS started playing by the book.