Originally Posted by lowerlobe
Why would any Australian or QF employee want to join another airline who's successive leadership has allowed such a huge debt to accumulate?
Thats not actually what happened. The deficit built in a slow but manageable with successive UK chancellors stripping tax benefits from share dividends that contributed a significant amount of income, then ballooned almost overnight with Gordon Browns smash and grab raid on the funds combined with the almost simulaneous introduction of the new FRS 17 accounting rules.
BA's mananagement certainly weren't negligent in their running of the scheme and the schemes overall position is similar to the vast majority of other DB schemes in the UK. In other words, it would only take a few Aussie politicians to shift the goalposts and Qantas (along with many other Australian companies) could find themselves in a similar position.
Your suggestion that the deficit is only a problem because of EU accounting laws is at odds with BA's own assessment of the situation...
When did you last hear an airline say "Times are great, no need for savings!"? Despite the 'threat to BA's existence' and the 'inaccessibility of finance' caused by the pension deficit the management still managed to line up some competitive finance deals for a whole fleet of new aircraft. In other words, it's in BAs interest to overstate the problem and use it as a cosh to beat their staff with.
Even with an injection of £850m the deficit is only slightly less than it was in 2006 and is only going to get worse with the current stock market problems.
Do you think we'll still be at the bottom of a bear market in ten years time? If BA is such a bad company how come it made £1Bn profit last year?