Good example, and I agree. As long as your work is done when it needs to be done and at a high quality, it doesn't matter if it's done during traditional work hours, on a plane, in a hotel, or on your patio over the weekend.

As for billing, however (as a consultant), the time I spend doing productive client work is billable. The non-productive time goes on my time card as client non-billable. That is, it's all accounted for, just not all productive.

I agree with most of the previous posts - my employer expects "40 hours" a week (reality is more), but doesn't care when it is done as long as the time charging is correct. Because I work with global clients my office time can vary entirely due to time-shifted meetings; and like most I am rarely 'disconnected'.

On the other hand, to put a black-and-white answer to it: If I have worked 8 hours that day (or 40 hours that week), then the time on the plane is mine. Otherwise it is work time, within practical limits: e.g. if I am travelling overnight for a meeting, then even though plane time = work time, that work is rest time.

I think most people who travel for business, have responsibilities (whether financial, personnel, technical or other resources), and are on a "mission". They generally do whatever the mission requires.

The mission usually requires a certain amount of work that has to be done by a certain time. Whether the work is done in the office, at home, at a hotel, in a plane seems inconsequential to me. if i can work on something I guess my flight time is work time. If I'm watching "Two and a Half Men", not so much. I don't consciously avoid either.

In my previous job, most of my work on behalf of client was site-specific, and was sold as a package of tasks and services rather than as an hourly billing situation; there was no overt pressure to generate billed hours.

I also benefited from enlightened managers who believed in the concept of "things coming out in the wash"; they saw the benefit of letting time in the air serve as as opportunity for the traveling employee to "veg out" a bit. :)

I don't agree with your reasoning at all, you're completely missing the boat.

Why should an employee who is required to travel in the air, have to take that as personal time, compared to other employees who don't have to travel, and can enjoy that time at home or doing whatever they want?

I don't understand what you're trying to say here, but I don't think you understand my point.

Your comment was that since you're only on the plane because of work, that therefore plane time is work time. I disagree with that line of reasoning, and I was asking you where that line of reasoning stops. I'm only at the hotel becuase of work, so does that mean that hotel time is work time? Or do you consider plane time to only be work time if you're flying during business hours? You didn't clarify this in your original comment.

To be clear, my point is that an employee *shouldn't* "have" to take either plane time or hotel time as either personal time or business time. What matters is that work is getting accomplished by its deadline, and not being forced into doing specific tasks on an airplane or hotel room based on what time of day it is.

For those that do work on the plane
 

Is wi-fi a must, or do you bring along work that you can without a connection? How valuable is wi-fi inflight for you?

If I were paid on an hourly basis, and if my hourly wage was paid for the time I was on the plane, I guess I'd consider that my employer's time. But most who do lots of flying for their work are not hourly employees. They may work extraordinarily long hours or not, but their salaries are probably based upon some measurement of overall worth to the company. (We have one guy in our company who hardly works at all, seriously, but he brings in a lot of money.) If any employer felt I should be on the clock for my 2 hour flight to PHX, I'd want him also to pay me for the extra 2 hours involved in packing, getting to the airport, checking in and clearing TSA. But they don't count my hours, just my results. I often spend much of my time on a plane preparing for the meetings and jobs I'm headed to, but often that's not necessary, so I enjoy staring at a book or the inside of my eyelids.

I would also not be away from my family and hobbies except for work related travel. If I'm travelling for work I expect some sort of compensation for being away from home. Not financial but if my work is done or can wait until I'm back in the office then I will veg on the plane.

Also, if I travel from home (EST) to California (PST) in the morning them work until 6pm PST that's a long day. Considering I leave the house for the airport at 6:30 am EST and complete my day at 6pm PST, that's a 14.5 hour day.

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There is no perfect system for accounting for this time, so this is my compromise...

The approach that I take when travelling is that if I'm performing work-related activities (reading, writing, culling email, etc) then I count that time 100%. Working on a 3 hour report is 3 hours of work time, regardless if it is at my desk, at the airport, or on the plane.

Activities which are travel 'overhead' (cab ride to airport, waiting in security lines) where its not practical to do work (or I'm just so wiped that I couldn't possibly read another report), I record 1/2 time. This is to recognize that I'm away from my family and am not free to do what I want, but I'm also not directly adding value to my employer.

If I am taking time to decompress or enjoy myself (e.g. exploring Fisherman's Wharf when travelling to SF), then clearly this is personal time. Yes, I am separated from my family and friends and am not in complete control of my time, but I am certainly enjoying the perks of travel.

For me, it is very important to have a a distinction between work time and personal time. I don't want work spilling into the rest of my life. I want to get my job done during normal work hours and be done with it. That being said, I can't justify billing for time spent on a plane unless I'm actually performing work tasks or traveling as part of a days work (traveling between client offices, etc). Most of my work basically requires a network connection, so I don't get much done on flights.

When you spend 8-10hrs+ a week traveling, you should think about this in relation to your pay. If you spend 50hrs a week on work activities, you've effectively reduced your salary 25%.

When I fly for business I consider that time to be time on the job, but that does not mean that I feel compelled to do more than travel. It is no different than if I spent time waiting at a Consulate to obtain a travel visa. If I spend two hours sitting in the waiting room I don't feel compelled to write a trip report as well, I am accomplishing something my employer wants, ie, to obtain my travel visa, no need to do two or three things every waking moment.

In general I count days of work, not hours. Whether I work 6 hours or 16 hours I consider that a work day. I don't ask for anything more on the days I work 16 hours, but I don't expect someone to ask me to take personal time if I leave at lunch to handle a personal errand. If I work or fly on a normal day off I take another day off somewhere else.

Trust me, it works out much more in their favor than in mine, and it is much easier.

Doesn't your employer have a policy around how to record travel time? I would think that the travel overhead time would be recorded at 100%. If you're an hourly employee than I would certainly assume that there's a company policy on how to record travel time.

I had to record my time at my last employer, even though I was salary, and we had a time code for travel. The "travel" clock started as soon as I walked out the door and stopped once I arrived at my destination. Didn't matter what I did with that time (personal or business stuff), it still got recorded as travel time. This is especially true if I was driving somewhere instead of flying, since obviously there's nothing - business or personal - that you can do while driving but the time still needed to be recorded. Now, if I was billing my time back to a customer that would be a different story. We'd have travel terms spelled out in the contract and it usually varied from contract to contract.

I think it just depends on your employer. I'm 75% travel and we have never had to record time spent traveling. If you are in a billable situation, then I can certainly see that. I'm on the sales side - and for the most part, my employee doesn't care when I work as long as I deliver the results - meet the metric they set out for me. If that means client meetings at midnight, and sleeping until noon the next day, then thats what we do. With that said, I do try my best to stick to a "traditional" 9-5 time frame when I can - and I think most clients appreciate that.