I don't know how attractive they are to employees though
United Airlines Ends Pension Plan Contributions
By MICHELINE MAYNARD and MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
United Airlines said today it would not contribute to employee pension plans while it remains in Chapter 11, a move likely to save it billions of dollars in cash and make it more attractive to the investors it needs to emerge from bankruptcy protection.
United also said it was considering its options on the plans' future, which union leaders interpreted as a signal that it will move to terminate the plans. The action came a week after United skipped a $72.4 million pension payment that it owed to three of its four pension plans. United also faced making hundreds of millions more in pension payments in September and October.
The plans have enough assets to keep paying benefits to retirees for now, but none of the four plans has enough to assure that employees will receive future benefits they have already earned. If the airline abandons the plans, billions of dollars in liabilities for those future benefits will fall on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a government-sponsored agency whose finances have already been ravaged by the collapse of pension plans at other bankrupt companies in the airline, steel and other industries.
