Delta Air Lines boards $500 million into pension plan

Delta Air Lines Inc., Atlanta, plans to make voluntary contributions totaling $500 million to its defined benefit plans in 2020, the company disclosed Thursday in a 10-K filing with the SEC.

The company has no minimum funding requirements for the year and contributed $1.02 billion to the plans in 2019. Delta contributed $523 million to the plans in 2018.

As of Dec. 31, the company's defined benefit plan assets totaled $15.845 billion, while projected benefit obligations totaled $21.199, for a funding ratio of 74.7%, up from 67.9% a year earlier, according to the 10-K filing. The discount rate as of that date was 3.4%, down from 4.33% the year before.

Delta reported the asset allocation of its defined benefit plans and included some other post-employment benefit plans, for a total of $16.328 billion. The allocation as of Dec. 31 was 34.2% hedge funds and hedge fund-related strategies; 27.7% in fixed income and fixed-income-related instruments; 11.2% commingled funds, private equity and private equity-related instruments; 10% public equities; 7.8% cash equivalents; 4.7% real assets; and 4.4% other.