It isn't really the FSS itself that is unaffordable by companies, and there is nothing that makes FSSs necessarily significantly more expensive than money purchase. Its only fundamental difference from defined contribution is that the employee is insulated from market fluctuations, whereas a DC pension worker must live with the fact that his pot of money may out perform or underperform the cost of living when the time comes to cash it in.
However, this switching from DB to DC is just nearly always just a cover for the company to reduce contributions by several magnitudes. If, for example it costs BA 25% of your salary to maintain the FSS pension; a contribution of 25% to a DC scheme would nominally be worth the same. Instead it is slashed to 8% or something, and new guys are palmed off with the bluster that final salary schemes are an extinct concept - Not so; All that has been delivered is a 17% pay cut.
(Edited for fantom's benefit).
Last edited by Joe le Taxi; 20th May 2006 at 11:20.