Pension reform is a popular topic since about 2009, with pension debt seen as a contributing factor in the deficits at all levels of government.

By law, United cannot shed its pension debt unless it can persuade the bankruptcy judge that it will not survive otherwise.

The real concern is over the implicit pension debts.

Already, the pension agency is working with $7.1 billion in pension debt that it took on from bankrupt steel companies last year.

That would increase AT&T's total pension debt to its work force to about $10.6 billion.

Companies also benefited before market conditions changed because paying out all at once meant extinguishing long-term pension debt.

Looming even larger are the challenges of dealing with the airline's complex fare structure and its big pension debt.

Terminating their plan would wipe some $1.7 billion in unfunded pension debt off the books.

Nationally, the pension debt, now officially down to 17.5 billion rubles (about $750 million), continues to shrink.

The HDZ government established a scheme to pay back the old pension debt.