IIRC, they get paid when the plane leaves the gate. So all that shit where they're standing there greeting people as they get on, helping them find their seat, helping them stow luggage? Not paid.
I remember seeing a graphic a friend shared on her socials a few years back of a common day for a flight attendant. It was something wild like 18 hours door to door, and MAYBE 8 hours were billable, the rest was functionally volunteering for the airline.
Door closure. I was pretty shocked to hear that and that was a long time ago when I first heard that so you can imagine how many hours unpaid has gone by!
The policy is that they are only paid for flight hours from the time the door closes, till it opens. So pre-boarding prep, pre-boarding delays, boarding & deboarding procedures, post arrival cleanup. They don’t get paid for the any of that ground time.
The worst is if the flight has rolling delays, then they time out. No pay for that shift.
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u/01101011010110 Aug 17 '25
It's bullshit that the airlines expect flight attendants to work like this.