NOTE 5 - EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS

Defined Benefit Pension and Other Postretirement Benefit Plans. The Company’s net periodic benefit cost includes the following components (in millions):


	Pension Benefits				Other Postretirement Benefits
	Three Months Ended March 31,				Three Months Ended March 31,
	2015		2014		2015		2014
Service cost	$	31	$	24	$	5	$	5
Interest cost		50		51		20		22
Expected return on plan assets		(49)		(45)		—		(1)
Amortization of unrecognized (gain) loss and prior service cost (credit)		22		3		(13)		(19)
Settlement loss		1		—		—		—

Total	$	55	$	33	$	12	$	7

During the three months ended March 31, 2015, the Company contributed $180 million to its tax-qualified defined benefit pension plans.

Settlement and Plan Remeasurement. During March 2015, the Company recognized a settlement loss of $1 million in earnings resulting from certain lump-sum payments under a separate pension plan related to the Company’s pilot workgroup. Application of settlement accounting required the Company to remeasure the assets and liabilities of this plan in the first quarter of 2015. The Company remeasured the pension plan’s liabilities using an average weighted discount rate of 4.05% compared to the year-end 2014 discount rate of 4.19%. As a result of the settlement, the projected benefit obligation of the plan increased by $6 million and Other comprehensive loss increased by an actuarial loss of $8 million. These items are not anticipated to materially impact expected net periodic benefit cost for the remainder of 2015. The Company recognizes the earnings impacts of its pension plans in Salaries and related costs in the Company’s Statements of Consolidated Operations.

Share-Based Compensation. During the first quarter of 2015, UAL granted share-based compensation awards pursuant to the United Continental Holdings, Inc. 2008 Incentive Compensation Plan. These share-based compensation awards include approximately 0.2 million shares of restricted stock and 0.3 million restricted stock units (“RSUs”) that vest pro-rata over three years on the anniversary of the grant date. The time-vested RSUs are cash-settled based on the 20-day average closing price of UAL common stock immediately prior to the vesting date. The Company also granted 0.6 million performance-based RSUs that will vest based on the Company’s return on invested capital and the Company’s relative improvement in pre-tax margin for the three years ending December 31, 2017. If these performance conditions are achieved, cash payments will be made after the end of the performance period based on the 20-day average closing price of UAL common stock immediately prior to the vesting date. The Company accounts for the RSUs as liability awards.

The table below presents information related to share-based compensation (in millions):


	Three Months Ended March 31,
	2015		2014
Share-based compensation expense (a)	$	17	$	32

	March 31, 2015		December 31, 2014
Unrecognized share-based compensation	$	90	$	62

(a) Includes $3 million of expense recognized in merger integration-related costs for the three months ended March 31, 2014. See Note 10 of this report for additional information.

Profit Sharing Plans. Substantially all employees participate in profit sharing, which varies from 5% to 20% of pre-tax earnings, excluding special items, profit sharing expense and share-based compensation, depending on the work group and the Company’s earnings. Eligible U.S. co-workers in each participating work group received a profit sharing payout using a formula based on the ratio of each qualified co-worker’s annual eligible earnings to the eligible earnings of all qualified co-workers in all domestic work groups. Eligible non-U.S. co-workers receive profit sharing based on the calculation under the U.S. profit sharing plan for management and administrative employees. Profit sharing expense is recorded as a component of Salaries and related costs in the Company’s Statements of Consolidated Operations.