Originally Posted by
Mostly Harmless
It is quite common. Every airline does it a little differently. As an example, you are paid an hourly wage but you are only paid from doors closed, engines started to doors opened. All work done before or after that is unpaid labour. There are many variations on the theme and I have no idea how this became the standard model of pay but... it sounds about right.
For instance, I could board the plane, have an emergency, deal with emergency, evacuate the plane, fill out all the paperwork associated with that emergency and not get paid one cent because the doors never closed.
And you will probably do a great job ;-)