So many pilots perpetuate this myth. There are pilots sitting at home or in a crashpad right now getting paid - not an aircraft door in sight. There are pilots on a 2-day layover sitting in a hotel right now on a trip with pay determined by the trip-rig in their contract. They're going to get paid the same whether they fly that day or go to the hotel gym. How about the guys on sick leave or airport standby?
The bottom line is, almost every airline pilot has some kind of monthly guarantee. Some have contracts with a min pay per day or at least a trip guarantee. They are all going to get paid something, even if the door of the aircraft never closes.
Now if you want to say - "We have agreed to only get paid more than the minimum for that day, trip or month when the door is closed" - I'll agree with you.
The large hourly wages of the jobs everyone wants are there in part to account for the "down" time between flights, pre-flight, etc. If we got paid for
every hour we were actually on duty, do you really think a WB Captain at a major airline would make $260+ an hour?
We're basically salaried employees that get a bonus each month based on how much we actually work. I think you'd be hard pressed to find many pilots out there that get paid
nothing if for some reason they don't fly.