Stewart Smith sent a message to Tom Enders that said:
Dear Dr Enders,
I am an ex employee of Airbus having retired at the end of 2013 after giving 20 years service.
When I retired I was with Cassidian and was offered the ADAPT pension scheme that allowed me to maintain my pension invested whilst taking a monthly drawdown of funds to support my retirement. In the 4 years that I have been in this scheme the pension fund has moved up and down but generally maintained a steady position.
In September 2018 I received a letter from Airbus explaining that due to consolidation of pension schemes that the Cassidian pension arrangement were to be wound up and absorbed into the Airbus scheme, with the exception of the ADAPT scheme members.
There was no real explanation why the ADAPT members could not be accommodated in the Airbus pension scheme and this felt as if the ADAPT members were being abandoned by Airbus. After 20 years dedicated service I felt I deserved more support at this time especially as this was directly impacting my pension on which I am totally reliant.
The ADAPT members are only given 3 months to find alternative pension arrangements. This only provides a small window of opportunity and does not take account of the volatility of the stock market.
The ADAPT scheme has three pension funds one of which, Standard life GARS has been falling for most of 2017/18 and is not expected to recover until next year, by which time ADAPT members will have exited the ADAPT scheme. In order to prevent such volatility in the future for my pension fund I am looking to purchase an annuity but this will crystallise the loss in the GARS fund. Ideally I would have waited until the GARS fund recovers and bought in a more stable situation but alas the Airbus timeline prevents me from doing this.
Since April my pension fund has lost over £23,000 which will have an obvious negative affect on the value of annuity I can purchase at this point and so will greatly impact my monthly pension and life-style.
I am sure Airbus did not intend to impact its ex employees in this way and so I was looking to you to help my current predicament.
