It's interesting that this has finally come on the agenda.
During the last year or so, I approached both the CAA and a number of carriers about the problem of missing lifejackets, but absolutely minimal interest was expressed by those approached.
Officially, the CAA view is that carriers are required to check compliance before EACH flight, but this is a rule followed more in the breach than the observance, and the CAA are not particularly zealous about enforcement!
To perform such a check manually would consume in the order of 5-10 person minutes for a typical 737/320 size aircraft, which is an undesirable extra burden, especially for the heavily time-constrained "low cost" carriers.
So, my company (
:: airfid ::) proposed a solution based on RFID tag technology and portable tag readers. The checking process then becomes as simple as walking the length of the gangway (circa 1 minute), since each tagged lifejacket "speaks" its ID. The results can be a simple count, or a check against expected inventory for things like time expiry, etc. Absences can be identified and replacements provided. Moreover, the reader can be "holstered" at the exit to detect any unauthorized removals.
Maybe one of these days I'll get a BIG order, but meanwile I'm not going to hold my breath
Cheers,
QV