If you set aside granite slabs, mountain ranges and Formica table tops, few things in the West have been more unyielding than the liabilities embedded in final salary pension schemes.

British Airways has just persuaded 6,940 of its employees to take pay cuts totalling £10m (€11.6m) to boost its troubled finances. Around 94% of the members of Balpa, the airline pilots' union, have agreed to a 2.6% pay cut, worth £26m. Chief executive Willie Walsh is working for free for a month. He says the company is in a "fight for survival."