Originally Posted by
Dr. HFH
I think that it's unfair that FAs have to report to the airport an hour prior to scheduled departure (IIRC), check in, work the boarding process, yet are not paid for any of this. Sluggoaafa (or anyone else who knows), any idea how the contract ended up that way? That's probably 90-120 minutes of unpaid work on each flight.
Unpaid may not be an entirely accurate way to describe it.
At some point in the pay negotiations there will have been a desire to hit a particular hourly rate, if the paid hours had not been reduced then the hourly rate would have been lower, so to hit the rate the hours covered have been adjusted and agreed on both sides.
There is a similar situation with pilots if I recall correctly.
The higher hourly rate will be of use when being paid for non-flight related hours so there is a bit of a leveling out between the two situations to consider.
These things tend to be forgotten over time though and people only remember the hours they are not being paid for rather than the higher rate they are getting for the hours they are being paid for.