Judge's action allows US Airways to emerge from bankruptcy ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) =97 US Airways will emerge from bankruptcy protection= on=20 Monday after a judge on Friday gave his final approval to the airline's=20 termination of its pilots' pension plan. That puts the Alabama Retirement=20 System in position to assume a controling interest in the company. The=20 pension issue had been the last hurdle to the airline emergence. On Friday= =20 morning, the Federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. gave its approval to=20 the pension plan, which cleared U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stephen Mitchell to=20 take action Friday afternoon. Airline spokesman Chris Chiames said the=20 airline will work through the weekend to clear up technical matters so that= =20 it can emerge on Monday. "Think of it as a huge closing on a house. The=20 weekend is going to be spent executing literally hundreds of transactions."= =20 If all goes well, Chiames said, the airline will receive a $900 million=20 federally guaranteed loan and a $240 million investment from the Retirement= =20 Systems of Alabama on Monday. That financing was only available to the=20 airline upon emergence from bankruptcy. The RSA is receiving a 38% share of= =20 the airline and a controlling interest on the board of directors in return= =20 for its investment. Once the airline leaves bankruptcy, it can gain access to a $900 million=20 federally guaranteed loan and a $240 million investment from the Retirement= =20 Systems of Alabama, which will receive 38% of the company's stock and=20 majority control of the board of directors. US Airways, the nation's=20 seventh-largest carrier, filed for bankruptcy in August, nearly a year=20 after the Sept. 11 attacks sent the airline industry, particularly US=20 Airways, into a tailspin. The airline has shed a third of its capacity and= =20 a third of its pre-Sept. 11 workforce of 46,000 employees, and cut its=20 costs while in bankruptcy by $1.9 billion a year. The final cost cut came=20 by terminating the pilots' pension plan. That plan will now be taken over=20 by the PBGC, and US Airways will replace the old plan with a smaller plan.= =20 The PBGC will now take over the old plan and pay out reduced benefits to=20 the pilots. Those benefits will be supplemented by the company's new plan.= =20 The PBGC's review concluded that the combined benefits pilots will receive= =20 are not as good as what they would have received under the old plan. If=20 they had been equivalent, the PBGC would have rejected the plan as an abuse= =20 of the PBGC's role as a pension insurer. US Airways will save an estimated= =20 $600 million over the next seven years under the new pension plan. The=20 airline and pilots agreed on the new plan last weekend, and the PBGC began= =20 its review on Monday. "We appreciate the efforts of the PBGC to respond=20 quickly and favorably in its review," said US Airways President and Chief=20 Executive David N. Siegel. "We have impressed upon the agency's staff our=20 efforts to work cooperatively with (the pilots' union), given the=20 leadership and sacrifices we have seen from our pilots." *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.thehummingbirdonline.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************