AMR set trust to cushion executive pensions -WSJ=20 =20 Thursday April 17, 4:58 AM EDT=20 NEW YORK, April 17 (Reuters) - AMR Corp. (AMR), parent of American Airlines, funded a supplemental pension trust for 45 senior executives last year that would protect part of their retirement income in the event of the world's largest airline going bankrupt, The Wall Street Journal said on Thursday. The newspaper said that according to AMR's annual financial statements filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission earlier this week the company funded the trust even as it engaged in intense cost-cutting to avert bankruptcy. A similar pension trust arrangement at Delta Air Lines (DAL), along with other compensation disclosures this spring, drew so much fire that the third biggest U.S. airline's Chief Executive Officer Leo Mullin gave himself a pay cut, the Journal said. =20 American Airlines defended its supplemental pension program, and noted that its executives' primary pension program would be at risk in a bankruptcy, just like that of its other employees, it said. "Different pension programs are funded at different times and the decision was made to fund this one then," a spokesman for American told the Journal, but declined to disclose the cost associated with the funding of the executives' pension trust. On Wednesday American Airlines' flight attendants granted the carrier a lifeline when they acceded -- at the last minute -- to sweeping wage concessions totaling $1.8 billion, which the carrier says it needs to reverse its dismal financial performance. An American Airlines spokesman contacted by Reuters early on Thursday was not immediately able to comment.=20 =A92003 Reuters Limited.=20