Gentlemen,
I am not a FDX guy, but I do have some experience with having a pension yanked out from under me. Once you are in the middle of your career it is tough to transition from one plan to another, but not as tough as seeing your plan go away. The problem with defined benefit plans is there are IRS restrictions about how much the company can put into the plan, dependent on whether the plan is properly funded or over funded. In 2000 the DAL pilot retirement trust was over funded by $1B. All during the late 90's DAL did not put a penny into the fund because stock market was doing so well the value of the trust was way over what was required and the IRS would not permit any additional contributions without serious tax ramifications to DAL. When the perfect storm hit in 2001 the market was already tanking and the pax business was stressed to where the companies could not make up the shortages as fast as the government required. That is why the big push to stretch out the time allowed to save the pensions that could be / would be saved.
For the sake of argument let's say to fund a defined benefit fund it would require a 10% contribution annually from the company. If the company would put that same 10% into an account in the pilot's name every year, regardless of whether the market is doing well or not, I think it would be superior to the risk of having a defined benefit plan fail. Additionally I think it would be more fair in that each hour flown by each pilot would be paid at the same rate. With a final average earnings plan (I was supposed to get 60% of my highest 36 months) a pilot who gets hired young and has a long career may be penalized for his longevity. Since the time value of money is so significant I think if I were under 30 it would be way better to have a defined contribution plan.
In the end the best feature of the defined contribution plan would be it belongs to you, and is in your name. It would be portable if anything happened and your company wasn't there any more (never say never). Additionally if you died soon after retirement your family and estate would have much more money than if they had to rely on a reduced survivor benefit. In the end if you could get the company to fork over the same amount of money for a defined contribution plan as they would for a defined benefit plan I would vote to have the money in my own account and in my name.