I will work beyond Normal Retirement Age

If you plan to work beyond your Normal Retirement Age, you will automatically continue paying contributions to the Scheme. The extra service after Normal Retirement Age for which you pay contributions, plus any increases to Pensionable Pay you receive after Normal Retirement Age, will be included in your pension calculation.

You can choose to stop paying your pension contributions either exactly at Normal Retirement Age or at some later date of your choice. Your pension is calculated at the time you stop paying contributions using the Basic pension calculation.

You may choose to keep your pension aside as a 'crystallised pension'.

If you crystallise your pension, no further service or Pensionable Pay increases are added to it, but the pension will receive a Late retirement increase, worked out by the Scheme’s actuary for the time between your Normal Retirement Age (or the date you choose to stop paying pension contributions, if later) and the actual date you retire. There is a choice on how the additional pension (built up from the late retirement increases) will increase once it is in payment for members with service built up before 1 April 1997. This affects the amount of additional pension that is paid.

You can continue (or start) to save AVCs to the APS AVC plan.

The Annual Allowance (AA) and crystallised pensions

Crystallised pensions do not need to be assessed for AA purposes if members do not build up future benefits within the BA Scheme. Saving AVCs within the BA AVC funds is deemed as ongoing benefit build-up. So if you save AVCs in any AA period while your pension is crystallised, the growth in your total benefits, including any late retirement increases added to your crystallised pension, must then be assessed against the AA for the relevant period.

The British Airways Pension Plan (BAPP)

If you crystallise your APS pension you can elect to join the British Airways Pension Plan (BAPP) for future service. If you do not choose to join BAPP, the Company may automatically enrol you into BAPP as part of a rolling three year cycle to comply with legal requirements. British Airways' auto-enrolment date occurs every three years starting 1 January 2013. If you do not wish to remain in BAPP once you have been automatically enrolled (for example you have Fixed Protection and do not wish to invalidate this protection by building up further benefits) you should complete the BAPP opt-out notice via the ‘Select: your benefits at BA' link on the ESS home page (which you can access via the BA intranet using your BSAFE password), usually within one month of being notified that you have been automatically enrolled. Advance notice of your wish to opt out of BAPP cannot be accepted. BAPP is administered by Aviva Life & Pensions.

Under Flexible Retirement, at any time from age 55 you can request British Airways' consent to reduce your working hours and at the same time draw or transfer out part or all of your pension benefits built up to date whilst continuing to earn extra pension for future service.

You can stop your active membership by electing to opt out of the Scheme. Once you have opted out at any time after your Normal Retirement Age, you have the choice to delay drawing your pension to a later date (called a 'deferred pension') or to draw your pension whilst remaining in employment (you may also be interested in Flexible Retirement, a different option which also allows you to draw your pension whilst remaining in employment but in addition you can continue to build up pension for future service – please see the BA intranet for full details).

If you choose to delay your pension until after your Normal Retirement Age (up to a maximum of age 75), a late retirement increase will be added to your pension from Normal Retirement Age (instead of the standard annual increase in line with the rate specified within the Government's Pensions Increase (Review) Orders), until you decide to draw it. The late retirement increases applied whilst your pension remains deferred may differ from those that are applied under the crystallisation option.

You must consider any decision to opt out of the pension scheme very carefully as you will be giving up valuable death-in-service benefits and will not usually be able to re-join APS at a later date. For full details see I want to leave my BA pension Scheme.

If you choose to delay drawing your pension (either by opting out of the Scheme, upon leaving BA or under the Flexible Retirement option), you can transfer your deferred pension to a qualifying alternative arrangement of your choice.