This is an honest question.

The system of pay in the airline industry is beyond convoluted. The rules covering regular pay, soft pay, deadhead pay, breaking guarantee pay...I mean, they make the engineer's panel of a Lockheed Constellation look positively minimalist and simplistic by comparison. Just trying to understand the airline pay system would probably drive an accomplished corporate tax accountant to an early grave.

I know of no other industry that is legally allowed to require an employee to report for work at 0800, finish duty at 2100, and get paid for 4 hours of work. (As happened to me today.)

Why are we paid this way? Why don't we have a system like every other hourly job in America, where you are paid from the time you clock in till the time you clock out, minus perhaps a lunch break?

Why do we allow ourselves to give 13 hours of our lives for 4 hours of pay?

Seriously?

Because saying you make $22 an hour sounds a lot better than making $6 an hour...or whatever your measly wage is. Walking thru an airport and around a jet looking for discrepancies isn't work, just time consuming. Plus, if I miss something on preflight, I can just tell them they get what they pay for.

Many many pure salary jobs work this way. I work in the Army Reserves and there is no such thing as a duty day, we work until the job or mission is complete. But many jobs in corporate America often involve working late hours etc with no extra incentive pay.

I agree that regional pay is crap, but there's many jobs that don't pay extra if you don't leave the office til 10pm. If you want the least amount work for the most pay and don't want to hold out for a Legacy gig trying flying corporate. Most (keyword being MOST) corporate guys I know/talk to fly about half as much as I do. The catch is that they're on call almost every day...

You are indeed correct; I've spent the past 18 years in corporate America. However, salaried jobs are just that -- salaried. There is no pretense of paying an hourly rate. You're paid a certain amount per year, and you certainly don't clock in or out. The airline industry is different in that we are allegedly paid an hourly rate for our time.

And yet it is perfectly acceptable in this industry for one to be paid for 4 hours when one was available to the company for more than three times that number.

I just don't get it. How did we, as pilots, decide that the only time worth being compensated for is the time between door close and door open? It's an honest question. I don't know the answer. I'm just curious as to how the industry came to adopt such practices.

Didn't a group of policemen recently sue and win a class-action suit because they weren't being paid for the first 30 minutes they reported to work (such time was used for changing clothes in the locker room, catching up on daily briefs, etc., before hitting the street.) How are we any different?

Because one day you're going to be flying 2 weeks out of the month making $240/hour, with 3 sports cars and a harley in your garage.

Because people keep showing up to work at the regionals thinking that this will happen.

LOL. Not everyone. Just me.

More like a used miata and a scooter.

Of course, and my Miata will be Fuchsia Red, for the ladies...

In a perfect world, pilots Would get paid from report time at an airport until he is arriving in the hotel. Or If at home base, when the last paperwork is done...