Galley Gossip: Nonrevs, deadheads & commuters in (and out) of uniform {Gadling}

Aug 8th 2009 3:21PM i was on an air china flight from beijing to xian in business class with my friend. We were delayed 5 hours, 4 hours of it was sitting on the plane waiting to take off. My friend was pissed and wanted to yell at the FAs. I told my friend to lay off of the FAs since I was pretty sure the FAs wanted to depart much more than we did. Air China doesn't pay their FAs for ground delays, they are paid only for the published flight time, nothing more and they have to be standing the whole time on the ground with NO pay. And for that particular evening, the FAs would also be working the return xian-beijing flight that would then go back out to singapore later that night. For my friend and me, well, the one time I paid for business class, at least I got to relax in that cabin (which had just 4 pax) rather than be stuck in a middle Y seat. The FAs had to spend an extra 5 hours at work on duty with no extra pay, now that sucks.