Cabin crew required vs no. of seats
 

I've flown recently a couple of times with Germanwings, on A319's with 156 seat configuration - and they only had 3 Flight Attendants. Am I not correct in thinking that JAR OPS states that 1 cabin crew member is required for every 50 seats or part thereof, therefore requiring 4 cc members? (50 + 50 + 50 + 6)?

Seems illegal to me.

Correct! but its based on the number of pax not the number of seats. So a flight can still operate with 3 crew as long as the pax onboard falls below that 150 mark. If the flight was completely full then I believe the rules have been broken.

From JAR ops:


JAR-OPS 1.990 Number and composition of cabin crew
(See ACJ OPS 1.990)
(a) An operator shall not operate an aeroplane with a maximum approved passenger seating configuration of more than 19, when carrying one or more passengers, unless at least one cabin crew member is included in the crew for the purpose of performing duties, specified in the Operations Manual, in the interests of the safety of passengers.
(b) When complying with sub-paragraph (a) above, an operator shall ensure that the minimum number of cabin crew is the greater of:
(1) One cabin crew member for every 50, or fraction of 50, passenger seats installed on the same deck of the aeroplane;

My bold.

Do German wings operate with converter seats in J class? or had they officially blocked off 6 seats? There are a multitude of ways around this and the are definitely not the only airline who do. BA from LGW regularly fly with 3 crew on short haul dependant on pax numbers.

BA from LGW fly 149 seats in a 734...

156 in a 320 in domestic config no? I'm going off old memory and seat guru so stand to be corrected. Original point stands regardless though.

Now I do not know how 4U handles this, but VO physically blocks 5 of the 105 passenger seats in their F100 by installing non-movable tables over the middle (E) seats in the business class section, making it legal to fly the plane with 2 cabin crew only.

Seeing that the problem is 6 seats at 4U, it would be rather simple to just block off the rearmost row on their 319 (either by physical means or maybe by declaring it crew rest seats and remove them from the booking/checkin systems).

From JAR ops:


JAR-OPS 1.990 Number and composition of cabin crew
(See ACJ OPS 1.990)
(a) An operator shall not operate an aeroplane with a maximum approved passenger seating configuration of more than 19, when carrying one or more passengers, unless at least one cabin crew member is included in the crew for the purpose of performing duties, specified in the Operations Manual, in the interests of the safety of passengers.
(b) When complying with sub-paragraph (a) above, an operator shall ensure that the minimum number of cabin crew is the greater of:
(1) One cabin crew member for every 50, or fraction of 50, passenger seats installed on the same deck of the aeroplane;

Want less Crew, take the seats out. You may be tempted to cheat or deadhead Crew not legal to work etc etc.

Or, Do they have a variation from the CAA of registration?

Allow me to repaint this paragraph of the EU-OPS a bit.

(b) When complying with sub-paragraph (a) above, an operator shall ensure that the minimum number of cabin crew is the greater of:
(1) One cabin crew member for every 50, or fraction of 50, passenger seats installedon the same deck of the aeroplane;

So by labelling installed seats crew rest seats and not accepting passengers to be seated or booked on them, the law seems to be fulfilled as well.

Sorry to not be at all useful, but this reminds me a lot of the Ipswich episode of the radio 4 series "Cabin Pressure" :D

Maybe in a 320 but BA only fly 319 Buses out of LGW.

I'll take your word for it now, but they certainly used to use 320's out of gat but as I said I'm going back a few years now. I only remember as it was a G-BUS.. which as crew was always a pleasure ;)

BA from LGW fly 149 seats in a 734.