Back in May, Continental Airlines sued nine pilots for getting sham divorces. The marital splits were part of a play for pension benefits, with the “ex” collecting while the pilot keeps earning. It’s good cash if you can find it, but Continental wasn’t thrilled at having to bear that extra cost. On Monday, a federal judge told the airline to live with it, ruling in favor of the pilots. Regardless of the pilots’ intentions, the judge said there wasn’t anything that would let him rule in favor of the airline.
Continental is considering an appeal, which makes sense given the money involved. The airline paid between $10 million and $11 million in pension distributions to the nine pilots, with some individual payments reaching as high as $900,000. In some cases, the spouses remarried after the check cleared.
Well, $11 million … do you know how many bags of peanuts pretzels that buys?