Tuesday 20 April 2021 7:40 am BA looks set to recover from Covid crisis, so why are its 40-something pilots giving up their gold-plated pensions? In turbulent times, when the future of a company is being called into question, it is not uncommon for staff to transfer out of their employer’s defined benefit (DB) pension scheme, if they have one. Although seen as “gold-plated”, some DB scheme members worry about their scheme falling to the pension lifeboat fund, and that they will lose money as a result. This has been the case at British Airways in recent months. Pilots in particular have been transferring out of the scheme for a number of years and for a variety of reasons, however in the last year, when the coronavirus hit airlines particularly hard, the viability of the company became another factor for those considering transferring away from the pension.