Maybe we should use professional negotiators instead of pilots. ;)

Welcome to one of the historic discussions on our pay. Back in the day, 1981, the UAL contract had a flat salary based on 81 hours for 737 pilots. The idea was to give scheduling the ability to try and be more efficient in the hourly scheduling. End result, they actually flew the pilots less and we sat around more.

The regulatory whats, when’s and how in compensation usually falls to the department of labor.
In the 135 world, I’ve worked for companies who ‘exempt’ pilots and others who couldn’t. We would compensate on those guidelines, such as travel time or training.

Let’s start with paying more than 3.75hrs for a 6hr sim session and paying more than just $10 in per diem for a 4hr field standby. I wonder what your doctor wife thinks about that?

Kinda balances out when you do a late flight out to MCI from ORD, then DH back the next day and get 10 hours of pay...

More food for thought.

Right, except when professional negotiators look all the **** we get paid for that we don't ever do, it would wash ;)

Often times, it doesn't matter if it's the spouse thats been with you since the beginning or a random stranger, trying to explain how we get paid is an exercise in futile and frustration laden.

There was one of those old "extranormal" videos of the cartoon conversations from long ago with a funny exchange of a pilot explaining how we get paid to a passenger, pretty much summer it up.

To answer the original question. Aircraft costs are directly related to anytime they are turned on, IE, hobbs meter, engine running. Roughly equates to block time. So pilot and FA pay is tied to the operation of the aircraft, hence block time.

I agree, we should be paid anytime we are on duty, but alas, this is not the case.

Aircraft cost are related to cycles, not to hobbs, and definitely not to block. You fly between IAD and JFK, half of your block is flight time. You fly IAH SYD 95% of your block is flight time.
My plan:
Flight pay (on a leg by leg basis) should start 45 minutes before scheduled departure, and end 15 minutes after brakes set, doors open, engines off (whichever is last). If you keep the same aircraft for the next leg, reduce pay by 30 minutes. Any time between legs over 1 hour pays 1 minute per 3 minutes.

I disagree. Maintenance is figure depending on the part, mostly by flt time. Fatigue life is figured on cycles. Fuel does not cost on cycles. EG. Heavy maintenance is figured based on calendar and flight time.

A 30k hour guppy is certainly not figured the same as a 30k 777. Number of cycles are drastically different. So it depends.