gravy plane
n.— «Also a large number of other athletic department personnel and their spouses made the junket. Also on the “gravy plane” were members of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents and spouses, school administrators and spouses, plus the so-called Faculty Board of Control of Intercollegiate Athletics and their spouses, and many hangers-on (termed “friends of the program”) and their spouses.» —by Murray Sperber Beer and Circus: How Big-time College Sports Is Crippling Undergraduate Education Sept. 20, 2000. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Mary Beth in Greenville, South Carolina, wonders: Why do we say four-oh-nine for the number 409 instead of four-zero-nine or four-aught-nine? What are the rules for saying either zero or oh or aught or ought to indicate that arithmetical symbol...
Sara in Madison, Wisconsin, was reading an old edition of The Joy of Cooking and came across a recipe that described a cake’s ingredients as earrings for an elephant. She couldn’t discern whether the authors meant that was a good thing...