I have some perspective from both sides of the coin as I worked for BA many years ago in a different capacity and so have a few years service in a NAPS pension but re-joined a few years ago as a pilot and have a BARP pension.
It is a fact that many long serving NAPS pilot members were retiring on pensions in excess of £100k p.a. at age 55. This is an absolutely unbelievable retirement lifestyle partly because it's an incredibly generous pension figure and partly because you could draw it at such a young age and with modern life expectancy spend 30 years on the golf course with your Aston Martin parked outside the clubhouse.
I understand the argument that NAPS members wish to retain the benefits they were offered when they joined because there is a yawning chasm between the retirement income you can expect as a BARP member and a NAPS one. This doesn't alter the fact though that due to the demographic and financial environment changes explained above it is simply not economic nor arguably right for BA to continue to fund gigantic pension contributions to a gold plated elite at the expense of the majority of employees. The truth is BA is making lower profits, paying out lower profit share, is less able to invest in new fleet and product because of the crippling and open ended commitment to a financially unsustainable pension scheme.
Unfortunately as other posters have pointed out the world is changing and not for the better. Those of us in our middle years wonder how the heck we're going to ever pay our mortgages off, the young can't even imagine how they will ever buy a property. Those coming up to retirement won a demographic golden ticket. Their training was funded entirely by BA, they enjoyed 24 paypoints, they bought houses in the 1970's for peanuts that have now spiralled in value far far above any rise in incomes, they enjoyed incredible guaranteed pensions funded largely by their employer and they savoured long layovers in the suites of 5 star hotels beside aquamarine oceans. It was a golden age but the world has changed beyond all recognition sadly (and I sincerely mean it when I say sadly!!)
I am no lover of modern airline mgt teams, I am a NAPS and BARP member and am socialist and strongly pro-union by nature but even I can't find a convincing argument to continue with NAPS at the expense of the majority of BA employees. I only hope that BA will enhance BARP significantly in return for the savings it will make by closing NAPS (which will benefit all) as I certainly don't want the money saved to just get funnelled into even more bonuses for our 'leadership? team'