BA pension funds
 

Walnut in Cyprus has posed the question twice now in R and News.

Can anyone say what will be the effect if BA do draw down on the BA Pension Funds. Will pensioners be taking a "pay cut" or having no pension for a month like WW has on his take home. Should I be putting assets on the market??????

Nothing will happen before april next year at the earliest .. that was from a Trustee.. :ok:

Can you explain? The funds are in deficit. Is this asking about terminating the schemes? They cannot 'draw' on them.

OK, gives up its bank guarantees. See Walnut of Cyprus "#51. BALPA BA ballot"

I well understand that the PFs are in deficit - one more than the other so I understand.

Yotty.

What do you mean nothing will happen till next April, what does this mean - that pensions stop being paid, or we get less, what will be the situation. Perhaps the Trustees should be letting us ALL know whats what!!!! As I said should I and others be cashing our assets in ????

"Nothing will happen until next April"!!!!!

Pensions are along term benefit not only for those in receipt but for those who are working towards collecting them on retirement. ie it has a bearing on all within BA. So if the scheme is prepared to "donate" stg 300M back to the airline from a fund which we know is in serious deficit this can only add to the shortfall? So does this mean that everyones current or future pensions are to be reduced or put in jeopardy?? We need some answers here please.
If you recall many years ago Robert Maxwell raided stg 400M from the Daily Mail pension fund, there was a huge row and pension legislation was changed.
Is Willie Walsh doing the same thing?

"APRIL", though BA were burning through cash at a rate, will be be able to wait until April without further problems or more cuts??

Releasing bank guarantees is not the same as donating funds.

I was talking about the results of the 3 yearly review..:ugh:

"Releasing bank guarantees is not the same as donating funds."

I accept that, however the guarantee was provided in the first place to allow the trustees to feel legally comfortable when BA were unable to provide full funding for the scheme. Now that underpin has gone the position MUST be less secure. Surely it is time for the Pension Regulator to be asked to look at recent events?

When will this Pension Regulator be brought in. I only hope that ABAP are doing something about it before next April.

Not only is staff travel for pensioners is under threat but now the b.....y pensions!!!!!

Nope.

When BA decided to do away with final salary pensions for new entrants about 5 years ago, with little protest I may add, they created a growing group within the company who in the future can not be relied upon to support measures relating to upholding the rights of workers/retirees with considerably superior benefits.

Regretably that is down to the predations of Robber Brown, who, without putting a fine point on it, loathes the middle classes, in particular the English middle classes (which by default hits the Welsh and Northern Irish too). The tax mechanisms he has placed in effect (using the 'time bomb' principle) has destroyed, or is about to, the pensions of the non-government employed middle classes (and MPs of course). You cannot 'blame' BA for what has happened. Final salary pensions have become quite simply unsustainable for any company and are going the way of the dinosaur. Thanks to Brown. Lawson started it off- Brown delivered the mortal blow, not with a whoop of exultation, but a quiet giggle because everything he did was set to explode in the future! That future is here now.

So, BA is in trouble and cannot make good the Fund (obviously- it's not alone). All you can do is co-operate with the company, because the share price is alarming. I took my money out of the scheme and lost several benefits as a result. Obviously my fund, along with several other Drawdown candidates I know, are sitting on a big loss. Some are working on unable to retire. I have reduced my pension income to some 60% of what it would otherwise have been because I cannot deplete my fund at this reduced level. EVERY pension fund in the country is in a certain amount of distress. One hopes sincerely that APS and NAPS can keep up their payments at a reduced funding level. But I don't see that blame can be attached to BA. They had a long pension holiday. By IR rules, a fund is limited to 105% liability requirement, so when a big fall comes, it hits badly. I do believe they are doing their best to fulfill peoples' expectations in a nightmare scenario. Industrial strife is the last thing anybody should countenance right now!

So WW can make the pensioners "pay" by restricting their Staff Travel in the future but has persuaded the Trustees to do what they have done!!!!!

Perhaps questions need to be asked of the Trustees, and Im sure they will!!!

ABAP should take this chance to have Staff Travel rights for pensioners re-instated.

The staff travel situation for retired staff has really taken wrong turn and needs complete re-examination, however it is a separate subject and I think better discussed privately. But if the company doesn't make it, there will be no staff travel for anybody....ever.

As far as pensions are concerned, my understanding is that when pensioners retire, their future liability is secured in better blue chip long term investments rather than more volatile investments. So a large part of BA pensions is invested in safer, though less exciting investments than those for future retirees. I believe a large part of the deficit is worked out for future liabilities, not for current pensioners, so there is no need to start selling assets and lying awake at night worrying. But someone, somewhere down the line, has to carry the can for what the politicians (both parties!) have done. They could not let the worlds most successful private retirement arrangements (funded out of private and corporate contributions!) be. They had to attack it, and in doing so, they have killed it off. WW and BA are not the villains of the piece.

Rainboe

Take a look at the ABAP website and see what is on there at the moment! It doesnt make one feel exactly secure if you are a pensioner or still an employee.

Why are there 6 BA appointed Trustees and only 5 elected by pensioner trustees. Who voted for what?

Im not lying awake at night worrying or selling assets YET but it would be a large slice of my present income gone if BA actually did fold. I think it says inthe Phil Howells statement - the Trustees seem to believe WW will pull the airline around but all this doom mongering by him does not sound very positive.

The airline needs to change course. It can't compete with the leaner airlines out there. We are approaching a time of industrial strife in a recession with pain all over. Changes have to be made- it's undeniable. But unless radical surgery does take place, BA will go the way of Pan Am and TWA. It's the last of the major old time survivors- we want to see it remain there. So a punch up approaches. It does not mean it is in immediate danger now, but it needs to win or the share price won't just be knackered, it won't be there.