[Speedbird1994]

Hello!

I’ve just travelled back from Oslo, onboard a British Airways A319 with 5 cabin crew onboard. The flight was really quiet, but apparently the outbound was busy, necessitating the extra crew.

I was just wondering, when do British Airways decide to roster extra crew on their short haul aircraft? Under what circumstances would they operate 5 crew on an A319 rather than the more usual 3?

[rferguson]

Speedbird it is based on the Club Europe booked loads.

I don’t work on the shorthaul aircraft so am not sure of exactly what numbers trigger what but it is a matrix along the lines of less than X number of CE passengers 3 crew, XX – XX number 4 crew, YY – YY number 5 crew etc. The matrix also varies depending on what band the route falls under.

[AFlyingDutchman]

In the old days, the regulations were minimum one cabin crew per evacuation door (excluding window type emergency exits). This regulation has obviously since changed and is more based on passenger load as rferguson has stated.

[AircraftLover]

The Airbus A-319 basic cabin crew are three
The minimum crew required, in each particular aircraft fleet, is established by aviation regulations
Then, each airline decides how many extra cabin crew they need, on top of that, to meet their service standards

[capetonianm]

BA have service standards?

[mkcol74]

[quote quote=952742]In the old days, the regulations were minimum one cabin crew per evacuation door (excluding window type emergency exits). This regulation has obviously since changed and is more based on passenger load as rferguson has stated.[/quote]

How long ago was that?

I always recall it as being 1 crew per 50 fitted passenger seats, irrespective of occupancy.

[rferguson]

[quote quote=952881]

AFlyingDutchman wrote:

In the old days, the regulations were minimum one cabin crew per evacuation door (excluding window type emergency exits). This regulation has obviously since changed and is more based on passenger load as rferguson has stated.

How long ago was that?

I always recall it as being 1 crew per 50 fitted passenger seats, irrespective of occupancy.[/quote]

It is actually down to a number of factors and whether the aircraft is wide or narrow bodied. 1 crew per 50 seats DOES still apply. But there are other factors also. For example, the A321. This aircraft (in BA’s config anyway) has less than 200 seats yet requires a statutory minimum of five crew. This was down to the requirement to have a crew member able to view the entire cabin during take off and landing as well as ‘encourage’ passengers at the back of the aircraft either forward or backwards depending on the situation in an emergency evacuation.

The A380 has 469 seats and 16 doors yet a minimum crew complement of 18. Again for similar reasons as above.

Also there is generally a CAA exception when an aircraft departing down route (ie not ex base) can go with one crew member less than the statutory minimum. This however may require passengers to be offloaded.

It also varies from country to country. In Australia it is one cabin crew member per 36 seats. Qantas has been lobbying the Australian FAA to change this to one per 50 seats and the Flight Attendant unions have been lobbying to keep it as is. Obviously a change from 1 crew member per 36 seats to 50 would have implications on FA numbers on board certain aircraft.

5 users thanked author for this post.

AFlyingDutchman, Jacob, openfly, mkcol74, Swissdiver

[Otte]

You made me laugh so hard…Thanks!

[Author]

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