The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the lifeboat for stricken US pension schemes, is right to be exasperated with US Airways.

In the four years before 2003, the company failed to put a single cent into the coffers of its pilots' pension scheme. Partly as a result, the PBGC was forced to take over unfunded benefits totalling $2.2bn (€1.8bn) last March.