Flight Returns for FA?

[ebwgs]

Jim is not correct. It was due to FAA regs. Augmented F/A staffing is required for long haul flights when a duty period is scheduled to be more than 14 hours. See FAR 121.467(B)(4), (5) and (6):

http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_G...ghlight=121.467

As I understand it, here, some of the F/As reassigned to the NRT flight had checked in many hours before that flight's departure to work another flight. When they were reassigned to the NRT flight, at least one must have had a projected duty time of over 18 or 20 hours, which triggered the augmented staffing requirements. Once UA realized what happened a couple of hours into the flight, it contacted the FAA to get some sort of one-time / self-reporting / "oops, mea culpa, honest mistake" waiver. The FAA denied the request, necessitating the return to IAD.

Bear my hats off to you. This was great information and totally clarifies the 1/50 rule. And my hats off to the reserve for knowing her stuff. Most reserves I know are usually well informed. It's always smart to confer with our colleagues on sticky policies and procedures REGARDLESS of where they fall on the seniority list. Once again, great post!

 

[goodgirl37]

You need one fa per door on the 777. And there are 8 doors.

This is what the purser thought as well, and guess what? She was wrong.

 

[clefaco]

Hi, for those that care, the FAA minimum number of Flight Attendants on a Boeing 777 is 9 (nine) Flight Attendants. While there does need to be one Flight Attendant per 50 passenger seats as a rule. The number of doors on an aircraft while relevant is not the deciding factor. For example the Boeing 737 (300, 500, 700 series) all have four doors and a FAA minimum of 3 Flight Attendants as an example of this. Being that they have under 150 passenger seats. I am not sure the exact reason the Boeing 777 has a minimum of 9 FA's. However the rumor is being that when United Airlines received the innaugaral Boeing 777, they were so eager to get it into service, that they recommended to the FAA that minimum FA's be 9 and this was accepted being that it went above and beyond the one FA for every 50 pax seat rule and was one more than the number of doors on the aircraft,which is 8, even though the number of doors is not a rule. So back to the facts, the reason 10 FA's were need for this flight is based on scheduled duty time, per FAA if a scheduled duty time exceeds 14 hours but is less than 16 , 1 additional Flight Attendant is needed above minimum, the blocked scheduled duty day for a flight to NRT from the east coast is approximately 15.45 hours so 1 additional FA is needed, hence 10! if scheduled duty time is 16-18 hours, then 2 additional FAs are needed , if scheduled duty time is 18-20 hours then 3 additional FA's.

Again this post is just for those that care to know the reason why they needed 10 FA's! And if the rumor is true, its kind of ironic that out of all the Airlines, United which recommended the minimum to the FAA would have a purser not know the correct number!

Dirk

 

[FWAAA]

Again this post is just for those that care to know the reason why they needed 10 FA's!

Welcome, Dirk. Bear96 covered this two weeks ago in post #11 above.

 

[clefaco]

sorry FWAAA I definately didnt want to step on any toes but bear96 essentially just posted a link and not a detailed explantion! Although he is completely correct, additionally some member still thought the minimum was 8 or 7 etc.! So I thought a more detailed explanation was needed for only those that wanted to know!

Sorry

Dirk