Cabin Crew Requirements

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joefremont
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Cabin Crew Requirements

Post by joefremont » Thu Aug 19, 2021 5:35 pm

Hi Flyers,

I was reading the FAA regs on requirements for the minimum number of flight attendants and found two different sections describing it:
§ 91.533 Flight attendant requirements.
(a) No person may operate an airplane unless at least the following number of flight attendants are on board the airplane:

(1) For airplanes having more than 19 but less than 51 passengers on board, one flight attendant.

(2) For airplanes having more than 50 but less than 101 passengers on board, two flight attendants.

(3) For airplanes having more than 100 passengers on board, two flight attendants plus one additional flight attendant for each unit (or part of a unit) of 50 passengers above 100.
But I also found
§ 121.391 Flight attendants.
(a) Except as specified in § 121.393 and § 121.394, each certificate holder must provide at least the following flight attendants on board each passenger-carrying airplane when passengers are on board:

(1) For airplanes having a maximum payload capacity of more than 7,500 pounds and having a seating capacity of more than 9 but less than 51 passengers - one flight attendant.

(2) For airplanes having a maximum payload capacity of 7,500 pounds or less and having a seating capacity of more than 19 but less than 51 passengers - one flight attendant.

(3) For airplanes having a seating capacity of more than 50 but less than 101 passengers - two flight attendants.

(4) For airplanes having a seating capacity of more than 100 passengers - two flight attendants plus one additional flight attendant for each unit (or part of a unit) of 50 passenger seats above a seating capacity of 100 passengers.
The question I have is which one of these is true, are the requirements based on number of seats or number of passengers?

Also in a similar vein, what are the normal staffing requirements attendants to passengers for first class, business class and economy class passengers.

I am thinking of changing the way the crew costs are calculated for the next version from a basic 5$ per pax to more of a per hour cost for the number of crew members.
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joefremont
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Re: Cabin Crew Requirements

Post by joefremont » Sun Aug 22, 2021 5:01 pm

To answer part of my own question, it seams part 91 is for GA flights and part 121 is for scheduled air carriers. So I think that for our purposes part 121 is more applicable, but I do wonder if the number if say only one passenger was on the aircraft do we need all the flight attendants have to be on board? I could see for an B747 or a A380 where there are 400-500+ seats but only a handful of pax in one section of the aircraft would we need all 8-10+ crew members?
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Cat
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Re: Cabin Crew Requirements

Post by Cat » Sun Aug 22, 2021 5:51 pm

Regarding the full crew:

Yes, they need to be on board because otherwise your crew schedule would be all out of whack the next day.... your flight attendants would be possibly thousands of miles out of sync with the aircraft. If you have ever flown a late night red-eye "back in the old days" when seats were not oversold so much, you might see more flight attendants and crew members dead heading to tomorrow's work than passengers.

Personally, for our use here in this world, I would base the number of FA's based on seats configured for the flight, not seats actually filled. Keep a complicated thing as simple as possible please.

Just my opinion of course.
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