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BA to appeal ‘perverse and irrational’ High Court pensions ruling

British Airways is to appeal a High Court decision which allowed trustees of one of its defined benefit schemes to make an additional payout to pensioners.

The High Court yesterday granted the airline permission to apply to appeal the ruling, which dismissed its challenge against the trustees of the Airways Pension Scheme, the Financial Times reported.

In a landmark ruling last week, the High Court found the trustees’ decision to award a 0.2% discretionary payment to pensioners in December 2013, at a cost of £12 million, was valid.

BA, which funds the pension scheme, had argued the decision was “perverse and irrational”.

The airline yesterday said that given the risks that remained with its pension scheme, it believed that deficit contributions should be used to improve the scheme’s funding position, and not improve benefits for pensioners.

The airline was also granted an injunction to block trustees from paying the 0.2% increase until the appeal has been heard.

“There are 26,000 members in this pension scheme, 98% of whom are already retired and on far more generous pensions than succeeding generations of British Airways employees,” BA said in statement.

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