Flight Attendant Current
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown
General None Reported / Taken
Procedure; Staffing
On our flight we were staffed with minimum crew of 6 flight attendants. When following the aircraft sign in sheet and abiding by the FAA minimum crew highlighted area it left door 2L without a FA (Flight Attendant) seated there. There was the Purser (myself) seated at door 1L and one FA seated at door 2R. All other flight attendants were seated aft of door 2. Door 2L is our main door we use for boarding and deplaning. Not having someone seated there is a major distraction for the FA assigned to door 2R. They not only have the two doors to arm/disarm but they also have to worry about the jetbridge/specials/gate agent at their secondary responsibility. Also during boarding they were using two doors to board passengers. That left only the aft galley FA to not only check and prep his galley but monitor bags/assist passengers/and remain vigilant of the cabin environment. Those are my concerns and observations regarding safety.Now from a service standpoint: when fulfilling the highlighted FAA minimum crew positions first that leaves us with no one in the position to work A zone galley. That obviously cannot be the case so the FA that was assigned the first class galley on the pairing worked the position even though she had to take a different jumpseat for FAA purposes. Now for in the economy cabin it took the 3 FAs working that cabin 2 hours to complete their service. Between the fact that you have only the galley FA available to sell food and nowhere to cross from aisle to aisle it made for the service extremely time consuming. A flight of that length is going to spur more passengers to buy food and not having at least a 7th flight attendant to support the economy cabin makes for an extremely long and inefficient service flow for passengers (and crew). From a staffing standpoint we had a deadheading reserve FA yet they weren't converted to work when they need was clearly present.
Air carrier Flight Attendant reported concern that minimum FAR staffing was inadequate for proper cabin operations.