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Employee Benefit Plans
 9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2019
Employee-related Liabilities [Abstract]  
EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS
Defined Benefit Pension and Other Postretirement Benefit Plans. The Company's net periodic benefit cost includes the following components for the three months ended September 30 (in millions):
 
 
Pension Benefits
 
Other Postretirement Benefits
 
Affected Line Item
in the Statements of
Consolidated Operations
 
 
2019
 
2018
 
2019
 
2018
 
 
Service cost
 
$
46

 
$
57

 
$
2

 
$
3

 
Salaries and related costs
Interest cost
 
56

 
54

 
10

 
16

 
Miscellaneous, net
Expected return on plan assets
 
(73
)
 
(73
)
 
—

 
(1
)
 
Miscellaneous, net
Amortization of unrecognized (gain) loss
 
29

 
32

 
(12
)
 
(8
)
 
Miscellaneous, net
Amortization of prior service credit
 
—

 
—

 
(23
)
 
(9
)
 
Miscellaneous, net
Settlement loss
 
2

 
—

 
—

 
—

 
Miscellaneous, net
Total
 
$
60

 
$
70

 
$
(23
)
 
$
1

 
 
The Company's net periodic benefit cost includes the following components for the nine months ended September 30 (in millions):
 
 
Pension Benefits
 
Other Postretirement Benefits
 
Affected Line Item
in the Statements of
Consolidated Operations
 
 
2019
 
2018
 
2019
 
2018
 
 
Service cost
 
$
138

 
$
171

 
$
7

 
$
9

 
Salaries and related costs
Interest cost
 
170

 
162

 
39

 
46

 
Miscellaneous, net
Expected return on plan assets
 
(218
)
 
(219
)
 
(1
)
 
(1
)
 
Miscellaneous, net
Amortization of unrecognized (gain) loss
 
87

 
97

 
(42
)
 
(24
)
 
Miscellaneous, net
Amortization of prior service credit
 
—

 
—

 
(42
)
 
(28
)
 
Miscellaneous, net
Settlement loss
 
5

 
—

 


 
—

 
Miscellaneous, net
Total
 
$
182

 
$
211

 
$
(39
)
 
$
2

 
 
During the three and nine months ended September 30, 2019, the Company contributed $335 million and $635 million, respectively, to its U.S. domestic tax-qualified defined benefit pension plans.
During the third quarter of 2019, United notified participants of a refresh to the plan options offered under its retiree medical benefit program. Current non-HMO (health maintenance organization) medical plan options for post-Medicare retirees will be converted to fully-insured Medicare Advantage plans. The plan design changes will impact all current and future eligible post-Medicare retirees, through updates in plan design and/or premium rate/contribution setting refinements. Benefit levels have not been reduced as a result of this change, and in many cases the refresh will result in reduced retiree contributions. As a result of this modification to its retiree medical plan options, the Company remeasured retiree medical benefit program liabilities using a discount rate of 3.39%. The projected benefit obligation of the retiree medical benefit program decreased by $421 million with an offset to Accumulated other comprehensive loss ($597 million in prior service credits, partially offset by $176 million in actuarial losses), which will be amortized over the average years of future service to full eligibility for the participants in the retiree medical benefit program (approximately seven years).
Share-Based Compensation. In the nine months ended September 30, 2019, UAL granted share-based compensation awards pursuant to the United Continental Holdings, Inc. 2017 Incentive Compensation Plan. These share-based compensation awards include 1.1 million restricted stock units ("RSUs"), consisting of 0.8 million time-vested RSUs and 0.3 million performance-based RSUs. The time-vested RSUs vest pro-rata, on February 28th of each year, over a period of three years from the date of
grant. The amount of performance-based RSUs vest based on the Company's relative improvement in pre-tax margin, as compared to a group of industry peers, for the three years ending December 31, 2021. RSUs are generally equity awards settled in stock for domestic employees and liability awards settled in cash for international employees. The cash payments are based on the 20-day average closing price of UAL common stock immediately prior to the vesting date.
The table below presents information related to share-based compensation (in millions):
 
Three Months Ended September 30,
 
Nine Months Ended September 30,
 
2019
 
2018
 
2019
 
2018
Share-based compensation expense
$
33

 
$
29

 
$
70

 
$
73

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
September 30, 2019
 
December 31, 2018
 
 
 
 
Unrecognized share-based compensation
$
90

 
$
68