Posted on: Saturday, June 11, 2005
American's pensions set as other airlines scramble
By Brad Foss
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — When American Airlines teetered on the brink of bankruptcy in 2003, employees agreed to $1.8 billion worth of concessions, with one comforting condition: their pensions would be protected.
Associated Press library photo • June 2005 "We are trying very hard to strike another path," said Tommie L. Hutto-Blake, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents flight attendants at American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp.
The chief executives of Northwest Airlines Corp. and Delta Air Lines Inc. on Tuesday told senators that their companies may have to seek bankruptcy court protection unless Congress gives them a 25-year extension to meet multibillion-dollar financing gaps in the pension benefits promised to workers.
In exchange, the executives pledged to switch workers to defined contribution plans, such as 401(k)s, and freeze existing pension benefits at current levels to limit the financial exposure of the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which has its own ballooning deficit because of defaults of the defined benefit plans of United, US Airways and others.
Defined benefit plans, which pay a lifetime pension after retirement, are financed by employers, based on actuaries' calculations of employees' salaries and life expectancies; defined contribution plans are retirement savings accounts financed by employees' payroll contributions, which employers sometimes match.
Northwest CEO Douglas Steenland said that "defined benefit plans simply do not work for an industry that is as competitive and as vulnerable to forces — ranging from terrorism to international oil prices — that are largely beyond its control, as the airline industry."
Steenland's opinion may ultimately sway Congress, but it had little resonance among executives and rank-and-file workers at American.
"There are a lot of people who have hopped on this bandwagon," said Mark Burdette, vice president of employee relations at Fort Worth, Texas-based AMR. But American has been able to chart its own course, Burdette said, in part because its pension-financing deficit is not as severe as Delta's and Northwest's.
Delta tops the list of U.S. airlines with underfinanced pensions, with a deficit of $5.3 billion, according to Standard & Poor's. Northwest is next in line with a financing deficit of $3.8 billion, while American has a shortfall of $2.7 billion.
This gives American the luxury of striving to protect its pension plans, which establishes good will with workers, S&P airline analyst Philip Baggaley said. "And, if all the other large airlines do convert to defined contribution plans and executives at American eventually feel they need to follow suit, they will have a better case to make with their employees," he said.
That deal, which saved the nation's largest carrier from a Chapter 11 filing, is a key factor that distinguishes American from its rivals at a time when the retirement benefits of workers throughout the industry are increasingly at risk. UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and US Airways Group Inc. have dumped their pension plans through bankruptcy restructuring and other carriers are threatening to do the same.
United Airlines flight attendant Wesley Collier sought support Wednesday from travelers at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in getting a six-month moratorium on pension-plan terminations.
