Note I - Pension and Other Post-retirement Benefit Plans

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2024

Notes to Financial Statements

Retirement Benefits [Text Block]

NOTE I—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 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 crewmembers, which is unfunded. Benefits for covered individuals terminate upon reaching age 65 under the post-retirement healthcare plans.

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 obligations. 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.

ABX measures plan assets and benefit obligations as of December 31 of each year. Information regarding ABX's sponsored defined benefit pension plans and post-retirement healthcare plans follows below. The accumulated benefit obligation reflects pension benefit obligations based on the actual earnings and service to-date of current employees.

ABX’s net periodic benefit costs for its defined benefit pension plans and post-retirement healthcare plans for the three month periods ended March 31, 2024 and 2023 are as follows (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended March 31,
	Pension Plans						Post-Retirement Healthcare Plan
	2024			2023			2024			2023
Service cost	$	—		$	—		$	5		$	13
Interest cost		6,614			8,631			23			33
Expected return on plan assets		(8,122	)		(10,192	)		—			—
Amortization of net loss		2,594			4,745			(23	)		—
Net periodic benefit cost (income)	$	1,086		$	3,184		$	5		$	46

During the three month period ended March 31, 2024, the Company made contributions to the pension plans of $0.9 million. The Company expects to contribute an additional $0.5 million during the remainder of 2024.