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Employee Benefit Plans
 6 Months Ended
Jun. 30, 2020
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 June 30 (in millions):
 
 
Pension Benefits
 
Other Postretirement Benefits
 
Affected Line Item
in the Statements of
Consolidated Operations
 
 
2020
 
2019
 
2020
 
2019
 
 
Service cost
 
$
53

 
$
46

 
$
3

 
$
3

 
Salaries and related costs
Interest cost
 
56

 
57

 
7

 
14

 
Miscellaneous, net
Expected return on plan assets
 
(91
)
 
(73
)
 
(1
)
 
(1
)
 
Miscellaneous, net
Amortization of unrecognized (gain) loss
 
37

 
29

 
(11
)
 
(15
)
 
Miscellaneous, net
Amortization of prior service credit
 
—

 
—

 
(31
)
 
(9
)
 
Miscellaneous, net
Settlement loss
 
11

 
3

 
—

 
—

 
Miscellaneous, net
Settlement loss - VSPs (defined below)
 
71

 
—

 
—

 
—

 
Miscellaneous, net
Special termination benefit - VSPs
 
35

 
—

 
125

 
—

 
Miscellaneous, net
Total
 
$
172

 
$
62

 
$
92

 
$
(8
)
 
 
The Company's net periodic benefit cost includes the following components for the six months ended June 30 (in millions):
 
 
Pension Benefits
 
Other Postretirement Benefits
 
Affected Line Item
in the Statements of
Consolidated Operations
 
 
2020
 
2019
 
2020
 
2019
 
 
Service cost
 
$
107

 
$
92

 
$
5

 
$
5

 
Salaries and related costs
Interest cost
 
112

 
114

 
14

 
29

 
Miscellaneous, net
Expected return on plan assets
 
(182
)
 
(145
)
 
(1
)
 
(1
)
 
Miscellaneous, net
Amortization of unrecognized (gain) loss
 
72

 
58

 
(22
)
 
(30
)
 
Miscellaneous, net
Amortization of prior service credit
 
—

 
—

 
(62
)
 
(19
)
 
Miscellaneous, net
Settlement loss
 
14

 
3

 
—

 
—

 
Miscellaneous, net
Settlement loss - VSPs (defined below)
 
71

 
—

 
—

 
—

 
Miscellaneous, net
Special termination benefit - VSPs
 
35

 
—

 
125

 
—

 
Miscellaneous, net
Total
 
$
229

 
$
122

 
$
59

 
$
(16
)
 
 
Given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Company does not plan to make any contributions in 2020 to its two primary defined benefit pension plans, one covering certain pilot employees and another covering certain U.S. non-pilot employees. The Company does not have any minimum required contributions for 2020.
During the second quarter of 2020, the Company offered voluntary separation programs ("VSPs") to its U.S. based front line employees, excluding pilots, and management and administrative employees. The Company offered its eligible front-line employees, based on employee group, age and completed years of service, special termination benefits in the form of additional years of pension service and additional subsidies for retiree medical costs. As a result, the Company recorded, in the second quarter of 2020, $35 million and $125 million, respectively, for those additional benefits. Also, the Company recognized a $71 million settlement loss related to the defined benefit pension plan covering certain U.S. non-pilot employees. As a result of the VSPs, the Company remeasured both its defined pension plan and its retiree medical benefit program liabilities using discount rates of 3.24% and 2.73%, respectively. As a result of the remeasurements, the projected benefit obligation of the defined pension plan increased by $655 million and the retiree medical benefit program obligation increased by $65 million, with an offset to Accumulated other comprehensive loss for both plans. The Company expects additional employee reductions in the second half of the year and, as a result, expects to record additional settlement and special termination benefits.
Share-Based Compensation. In the six months ended June 30, 2020, UAL granted share-based compensation awards pursuant to the United Continental Holdings, Inc. 2017 Incentive Compensation Plan. These share-based compensation awards included 2.4 million restricted stock units ("RSUs"), consisting of 2.1 million time-vested RSUs and 0.3 million performance-based RSUs. The time-vested RSUs vest pro-rata, typically on February 28th of each year, over a three-year period from the date of grant. The amount of performance-based RSUs vest upon the achievement of established goals based on the Company's absolute pre-tax margin performance as well as a customer metric based on the Company's relative quarterly average of net promoter scores as compared to a group of industry peers, both of which are measured for the three-year performance period ending December 31, 2022. 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 June 30,
 
Six Months Ended June 30,
 
2020
 
2019
 
2020
 
2019
Share-based compensation expense
$
24

 
$
21

 
$
42

 
$
37

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
June 30, 2020
 
December 31, 2019
 
 
 
 
Unrecognized share-based compensation
$
135

 
$
77