It's 22 years since I stopped flying and we used to have to thoroughly check the lifejackets before every flight.
It is quite hard work getting down to see all of them and it would probably take 5 minutes or so. Obviously, time which could not be spared on a 25 minute turnround.
We didn't check them on turnround, the theory being I suppose that if some were missing, there wasn't a lot we could do about it!!
