Aircraft Mechanic Overtime Pay: How to Calculate a 58-Hour Week (Airline vs. Contractor)

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Aircraft have to be ready when the schedule says so, and maintenance work does not always finish when the shift does. Heavy checks, an aircraft on the ground and a Saturday call-in are all ordinary reasons for a long maintenance week.

The pay for that week is less standard than it looks. Many jobs follow the federal overtime rule. Some of the biggest employers in aviation do not, and pay under a union contract instead. This post works out the same week both ways, so the difference is visible in dollars.

The federal baseline

For most hourly workers, the Fair Labor Standards Act requires pay at one and a half times the regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. The U.S. Department of Labor explains this in Fact Sheet #23, and the rule itself is 29 U.S.C. 207. It looks at the workweek, not at the single day, so a long Tuesday does not create federal overtime by itself.

The exception that matters in aviation

The same law lists some employees as exempt from the overtime rule. One of them is "any employee of a carrier by air subject to the provisions of title II of the Railway Labor Act" (29 U.S.C. 213(b)(3)).

In plain terms, a mechanic employed by an airline that is covered by that law is generally not entitled to the federal 1.5x rule. Overtime for that job comes from the collective bargaining agreement: the contract decides what counts as overtime, what it pays, and when. A mechanic working for a repair station, staffing firm or contractor that is not itself such a carrier is a separate question. Whether the exemption reaches a particular contractor is a fact-heavy question that is decided case by case, and the employer has to show that it applies. The practical point is that the job title "aircraft mechanic" does not tell you which rule you are under. The employer does.

One more detail, because it is easy to assume otherwise: the separate FLSA exemption for dealerships that sell and service vehicles names salesmen for aircraft, not mechanics. Aircraft mechanics are not named in that provision.

The week used below

All figures are invented. A mechanic with a regular rate of $42.00 an hour works:

Case 1: the federal rule applies

This is the pattern for a contractor or repair-station employee covered by the FLSA.

Check by another route: 58 x $42 = $2,436 straight time, plus an extra half for 18 hours, 18 x $21 = $378. $2,436 + $378 = $2,814. Same answer. The average over 58 hours is $48.52 an hour.

Case 2: a contract sets the rule

Now suppose the mechanic works under a union agreement. This one is invented for the example: 1.5x for hours past 8 in a shift on days 1 to 5, and 2x for every hour on a sixth day.

That is $168 more than Case 1 for the same 58 hours. The average is $51.41 an hour. A different invented contract could just as easily pay less. The only reliable way to know is to read the overtime article of the agreement you work under.

Same 58-hour week at $42 Rule Week pay Average per hour
Case 1 Over 40 in the week at 1.5x $2,814 $48.52
Case 2 (invented contract) Over 8 in a shift at 1.5x, sixth day at 2x $2,982 $51.41

What a per diem can do to the rate

Mechanics on travel assignments often get a daily per diem on top of the hourly wage. Under the FLSA, overtime is built on the regular rate, which is the week's total pay (with some legal exclusions) divided by the hours worked. 29 CFR 778.109 states this.

Travel reimbursements that reasonably approximate the expense are generally left out of that rate. 29 CFR 778.217 says that a disproportionately large amount has its excess included in the regular rate.

Here is a hypothetical to show the effect. A traveling technician is paid $30.00 an hour for 50 hours and also receives a per diem. Suppose $350 of the per diem were found to exceed the reasonable cost of the expenses.

If that $350 were left out of the regular rate, the premium would be 10 x $15 = $150, which is $35 less. The amount is small in this example. It repeats every week, though. Whether a given per diem is reasonable is a question about the facts, and this example does not decide it.

The hours side: a rest day rule

Pay is half the picture. For hours, the FAA has one rule for maintenance personnel at airlines operating under 14 CFR Part 121: 14 CFR 121.377. It requires that each person doing maintenance be relieved from duty for at least 24 consecutive hours during any seven consecutive days, or the equivalent within a calendar month.

Two things follow from reading it closely. It is a rest rule, not an hours cap, and it does not set a daily limit. And it concerns time off, not pay. The 58-hour week above, with one full day off, is consistent with it. A seven-day stretch with no day off would not be.

Check your own week in five steps

  1. List the hours worked each day. Count the shift the way your employer counts paid time.
  2. Find which rule applies. An airline's collective agreement, or the federal rule for a non-carrier employer. If you are unsure, payroll or your union can say which.
  3. Apply the rate tiers in order. Straight time, then 1.5x, then any 2x tier.
  4. Add every pay element that counts. Differentials and non-discretionary bonuses raise the regular rate. See non-discretionary bonus overtime recalculation and shift differential vs overtime on your paycheck.
  5. Compare the total with the pay statement. Flight crews have their own pay mechanics; for those see flight attendant block-time pay.

Counting each hour once, and only once, matters when a day tier and a week tier both exist. The same idea is explained in daily and weekly overtime in the same week. The free shift pattern calculator shows how many hours a rotation puts in each week before any premiums are added.

Keep your own record

Maintenance schedules shift with aircraft availability, so a personal log of real start and stop times is what makes any of the above checkable later. Duty Pals, a shift calendar for Android, is now on Google Play.

This is a general explanation of federal rules and uses invented figures. It is not advice about your own paycheck. Whether an exemption applies, and what a union agreement requires, depends on the employer and the facts. The U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, your union representative or an employment attorney licensed in your state is the authority on your situation.