American Airlines Sued Over Worker Disability Benefit Payouts

A former American Airlines Inc. pilot filed a proposed class action saying the airline systematically shortchanges employees’ disability benefits by calculating them without reference to an employee’s full compensation.

American underpays workers’ disability benefits by improperly excluding certain forms of compensation from the income used to calculate these monthly payments, the pilot said in a complaint filed June 6 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The airline should have increased these benefits to account for compensation including vacation time, ratification bonuses, profit sharing benefits, grievance payouts, and other supplemental amounts, plaintiff Ronald Galuppo Jr. said ...