British Airways Pensions website

What you get on leaving will depend on your Qualifying service, which is essentially the time you have been in the Scheme adjusted for any changes in your BA occupations prior to 31/3/07 (such as a move from Flight Staff to Ground Staff) plus any service you have transferred into the scheme.

If you are in NAPS and leave your job with less than 2 years of qualifying service

You are entitled to a refund of your own contributions less tax, plus either:

• 3.5% interest per year, for Final Salary.
• the actual rate of investment return up to your date of leaving, for BAMPS

For Final Salary members, your refund will be reduced to reinstate you into the State Second Pension (S2P) (previously known as State Earnings Related Pension Scheme - SERPS) for your period of Pensionable service.

You must stop making Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs). Your AVC account will be refunded after we have deducted tax.

If you have completed at least three months' membership of the Scheme you can choose to keep a deferred pension in the scheme instead of taking a refund.

If you have transferred rights into your scheme from a personal pension, you are entitled to a deferred pension, even if you have less than two years' Qualifying service in total.

If you are in NAPS and leave with two or more years' Qualifying service

Under both Final Salary and BAMPS, you can leave your pension with BA or transfer it elsewhere.

• If you leave your pension with BA it is called a deferred pension. This will be paid at your selected Normal retirement age (Plan 60 or Plan 65), or you can choose to draw it earlier (see What if I retire early?). Although you may have several elements of pension with different Normal retirement ages, these are treated as a single pension entitlement and cannot be drawn separately. When you draw your pension, the pensions you have earned will be appropriately adjusted to become payable from the same date. If you have a mixture of Plan 65 and Plan 60/Option 55 service your deferred pension is payable from the Normal retirement age of the plan you were in on the date you left BA.
• You must stop making additional voluntary contributions. If you become entitled to a deferred pension, your AVCs stay in the fund and continue to build up with investment income until your scheme pension becomes payable.
• Under BAMPS, you must stop making payments into your individual retirement account when you leave BA. But investment income will increase the value of your account. The money in your account will be used to buy your pension at retirement.
• You can transfer the value of your BA pension to another pension scheme approved by HM Revenue and Customs.

Your pension choices after leaving your BA pension scheme

• Get a pension from the State Second Pension (S2P).
• Get a personal or stakeholder pension either contracted into or out of S2P. The personal or stakeholder pension would be with a provider of your choice and BA will not contribute to this (apart from the portion of BA's National Insurance contributions which the Department of Social Security would pass on to your provider if it were contracted out of S2P).

To make any change, give us one calendar month's written notice.