Staff at the small UK airline BMI, owned by German group Lufthansa, will have woken this morning to the unwelcome news that their pensions will likely be cut - but why is the UK's Pensions Regulator accepting this, when it has pursued foreign companies for pensions bailouts before?

In a statement yesterday, Lufthansa announced that the British Midland Airways Limited Pension and Life Assurance Scheme will be transferred to the UK's Pension Protection Fund, which is a lifeboat for pension funds whose parent companies go bust.