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affirmative conclusion that these payments were not travel
expenses. The pilots and flight attendants could use the per
diem payments as they pleased, just as they could use their base
salaries as they pleased. The per diem payments were not
contingent on the employees’ incurring or accounting for any
travel expenses. Indeed, the per diem payments were in addition
to amounts United provided its employees for practically all
travel expenses except meals and incidentals.2
Rather than provide its employees meals and incidentals,
United agreed, as part of a negotiated union contract, to pay
them small hourly wage enhancements for all hours they were on
duty or on flight assignment. The union contract refers to the
wage enhancements as per diem payments. The nomenclature does
not affect the reality, however, that the bargain struck was for
additional compensation, not for meals, incidentals, or other
travel expenses.
The fact that the per diem payments were computed by
reference to time spent on duty or aboard the aircraft does not
suggest that the per diem payments are travel expenses. Rather,
it suggests the contrary. Hours on duty or on board an aircraft
would appear to encompass substantially all the pilots’ and
flight attendants’ hours on the job. Moreover, from United’s
2 The record reveals that in addition to providing its
pilots and flight attendants per diem payments, United also
provided them–-either directly or through reimbursement--lodging,
ground transportation between airports and hotels, and uniform
laundering.
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