The duration from takeoff to landing used for compensation purposes is known as what?

• A. Air Time
• B. Time of Flight
• C. Flight Time
• D. Elapsed Time

Answer: (C)

Flight time is the amount of time the aircraft is in the air, measured from wheels up (takeoff) to touchdown (landing). This is the standard metric airlines use for compensation and pilot/logbook records because it captures the actual period of flight activity paid to crewmembers.

Air time is similar but can be defined differently in some contexts, and time of flight or elapsed time refer to other concepts not used for payroll: time of flight is a physics term describing a projectile’s travel duration, and elapsed time is just the total span from start to finish, potentially including ground time. Therefore, the duration from takeoff to landing used for compensation purposes is flight time.