If an employee travels on a plane with an elderly person or person with an illness, injury or disability outside of the employee’s normal work day and is required to assist the person only during the beginning and end of the flight and is otherwise able to spend the flight time for his or her own purposes, such as reading a magazine, taking a nap or watching a movie, must the entire flight time be paid?

Any work which an employee performs while traveling must be counted as hours worked. However, it is clear that not all time spent while away on travel is hours worked and there may be significant periods of time that a direct care worker is not working and is not “engaged to wait” and thus need not be compensated. For example, periods when the employee is completely relieved from duty and which are long enough to enable the employee to use the time effectively for his or her own purposes, such as reading a magazine, taking a nap or watching a movie, are not considered work time that must be paid.

October 2018

Tags: Travel Time