CHICAGO, Nov. 30 (AP) - Hoping to salvage some lost pension money, the trustee representing employee pension funds at United Airlines sought a court order on Tuesday that the carrier be required to make up hundreds of millions of dollars in skipped contributions.
The trustee, Independent Fiduciary Services, said in the motion filed in Federal Bankruptcy Court that it sought to collect as much as $994 million in payments that United had missed since it announced in July that it was halting pension contributions.
The motion asked for at least $260 million, the minimum that United was to have paid.
The advisory firm, appointed as independent fiduciary this fall, said its action applied to pension plans covering three United union groups: flight attendants, mechanics, and ramp and public contact workers. The airline has not faced a required payment for its pilots' pension in recent months.
The trustee firm seeks to classify the unpaid contributions as administrative expenses, which would give them a higher-priority status in the bankruptcy proceeding.
United has said that it will move to terminate its pension plans and replace them with defined-contribution programs along the lines of 401(k) plans. But the trustee firm noted that the airline had not done so.
United wants to eliminate its traditional pensions as part of heavy cost-cutting that it says is necessary for it to be profitable.
"Our decision not to make these contributions was based on our good-faith business judgment concerning our use of cash and need to preserve liquidity during this phase of our restructuring," a United spokeswoman, Jean Medina, said. "It is the prudent exercise of our discretion under the bankruptcy code."
A spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, Sara Nelson Dela Cruz, said the union had not seen the motion but welcomed any effort to preserve its defined-benefit pension plan.
The motion is expected to be addressed at a hearing on Dec. 17.
The UAL Corporation, the parent of United, reported on Tuesday that it had a $114.4 million net loss for October on $1.57 billion in revenue.