What If
In all of this nobody has posed the question what happens if the current situation drives BA into liqidation. Not just jobs will be lost but pensions may disappear as well.
Found this today in the Telegraph. Apparently the government pension rescue fund is creaking at the seams....
>>>More than 200,000 Britons with final salary pensions are waiting to hear whether they will receive compensation after their companies went bust
A lifeboat fund for workers who have lost their pensions is currently assessing 201,000 cases, up from 123,000 in March 2008. Experts warned the Pension Protection Fund is being stretched to the limit as it compensates increasing numbers of savers and may soon have to reduce the amount it pays out. It paid out £37.6 million in the tax year ending 2009 compared with £17.3 million the previous year and £1.4 million in the tax year ending 2007. The fund is a safety net for workers whose companies which have collapsed and can no longer afford to meet guarantees to provide final salary pensions. It means workers will at least receive some money in retirement, with the average payout from the PPF being just under £4,000 a year. The fund, which began making its first compensation payments in 2006, is partly funded by fees it charges to remaining final salary pension schemes. Laith Khalaf, a pensions analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “The PPF is funded by the final salary schemes left standing, so each member that falls into the PPF is not just one more mouth to feed but is one less pair of hands to do the feeding. The worry is that at some point the burden of compensation at current levels will become too great.” There are 7,300 final salary schemes in Britain, according to the Pension Protection Fund. These provide members with a pension based on their final salary – as opposed to a defined contribution pension, which relies on the performance of the stock market. Companies are closing the final salary pension schemes as they can no longer afford to guarantee members that they will pay out what they promised