$5 an Hour

Remember when I was whining about The Pilot's crappy schedule and his $13/hour day? Yeah, well I jinxed his day completely by 1) blogging about it and 2) buying him a burrito for lunch because he was supposed to be home by 1 pm that day.

The day went horribly awry from there. After several delays (and several hours sitting in the airport, on duty), his flight home was canceled due to a mechanical problem with his plane. It happens. But that meant that he didn't have a plane to fly home. So his company scheduled him to deadhead on a later flight. That flight kept getting delayed which meant more time sitting in the airport, on duty but not getting paid. When I say on duty, that means he has to be at the airport and ready to fly but he's not getting paid for that time. In my own words , that means he has to be in uniform and sober. :) Anyways...he deadheaded home. When deadheading he is only paid 75% of his normal flight pay because he's not actually doing anything associated with operating the plane. He was sitting in the back next to some random passenger who smelled bad and may or may not have been picking his nose.

He didn't get home until after 9 pm, having left home sixteen hours earlier. So instead of having his burrito for lunch or dinner, he had a late night snack. When we were doing the math based on the amount of time he was on duty and the time he actually got paid, he made about $5 per hour for the 14.5 hours he spent on duty. Let me point out that those $5 are BEFORE taxes. When he told me this, I think there was smoke coming out of my ears. I just don't understand how his airline can do that. In my opinion, that just doesn't seem ethical.