If operational staff where so incompetent or slack, they would be sacked by now… why are our ‘financial’ experts still in situ?
Finally, to those who are worried (i.e. believe the scaremongering) about NATS going to the wall – for the sake of £60 million do you honestly think NATS (a company upon which the UK economy is utterly dependant on) will be allowed to fail by a government that has ploughed £billions into banks etc?
OF COURSE IT WON’T!!
I agree that there was a clear intent by NATS board/exec to force the pensions issue by allowing the surplus to errode completely. However, this is not incompetent management, nor slack or sackable. It's 'by the book' and considered prudent fund management, sadly. We dont have a right to tell NATS how it should treat a surplus. It's 'theirs', not 'ours'. What we do have a right to is to expect them to hold up their end of the bargain and stump up whats needing paid once they've eroded it.
As to the talk of bankruptcy and re-nationalisation... Clearly NATS would not be allowed to cease doing business. HMG would have to step in, but that's not going to be all rainbows and roses. The company would be saved, but the first step after that would see hundreds of us lose our jobs, service levels would get hit and T&Cs would be attacked.