Pension and Other Post-Retirement Benefit Plans

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2012

Compensation and Retirement Disclosure [Abstract]

Pension and Other Post-Retirement Benefit Plans

PENSION AND OTHER POST-RETIREMENT BENEFIT PLANS

Defined Benefit and Post-retirement Healthcare Plans

ABX sponsors a qualified defined benefit pension plan for ABX crewmembers and a qualified defined benefit pension plan for a major portion of its other ABX employees that meet minimum eligibility requirements. ABX also sponsors non-qualified defined benefit pension plans for certain employees. These non-qualified plans are unfunded. Employees are no longer accruing benefits under any of the defined benefit pension plans. ABX also sponsors a post-retirement healthcare plan for its ABX employees, which is unfunded.

The accounting and valuation for these post-retirement obligations are determined by prescribed accounting and actuarial methods that consider a number of assumptions and estimates. The selection of appropriate assumptions and estimates is significant due to the long time period over which benefits will be accrued and paid. The long term nature of these benefit payouts increases the sensitivity of certain estimates of our post-retirement costs. The assumptions considered most sensitive in actuarially valuing ABX’s pension obligations and determining related expense amounts are discount rates and expected long term investment returns on plan assets. Additionally, other assumptions concerning retirement ages, mortality and employee turnover also affect the valuations. Actual results and future changes in these assumptions could result in future costs significantly higher than those recorded in our results of operations. The Company's net periodic benefit costs for its qualified defined benefit pension and post-retirement healthcare plans for both continuing and discontinued operations are as follows (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended September 30,												Nine Months Ended September 30,
	Pension Plans						Post-Retirement Healthcare Plan						Pension Plans						Post-Retirement Healthcare Plan
	2012			2011			2012			2011			2012			2011			2012			2011
Service cost	$	—		$	—		$	67		$	62		$	—		$	—		$	201		$	186
Interest cost	9,272			9,290			95			97			27,816			27,871			285			291
Expected return on plan assets	(9,970		)	(9,757		)	—			—			(29,910		)	(29,271		)	—			—
Amortization of prior service cost	—			—			(1,388		)	(1,388		)	—			—			(4,164		)	(4,164		)
Amortization of net loss	2,670			675			108			132			8,010			2,025			324			396
Net periodic benefit cost	$	1,972		$	208		$	(1,118	)	$	(1,097	)	$	5,916		$	625		$	(3,354	)	$	(3,291	)

During the three and nine month periods ended September 30, 2012, the Company contributed $18.5 million and $22.2 million to the pension plans. The Company plans to contribute an additional $2.5 million in 2012.