Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Multiengine
Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown; Time Pressure; Workload
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Weight And Balance
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors
I was made aware that our flight was flagged for a passenger location/count audit. Apparently; we sent two requests via ACARS for a manifest/performance numbers with the location/count of the second one being off from the first. I cannot recall the exact details of this flight but I believe what happened is that I was notified of passengers moving zones due to social distancing. When this happens; I request a manual location/count be completed by the flight attendants to ensure we have accurate zones for the takeoff data. I believe there was a count error that was missed by us or the cabin crew.Although every effort was made to ensure we had accurate zones for departure; we ended up with three extra passengers than what the final location/count included. We were doing our best to ensure we had accurate numbers before block-out and perhaps the final count was overlooked as we were pressured for time. I am often notified of these changes with only minutes to spare before departure; so I feel that letting the passengers move rushes us and exposes errors like this one.While I understand some peoples need to distance on an airplane; I think there should be a cutoff in time before departure for this to be allowed. This creates an unnecessary distraction for the crew; and could create potential discrepancies like this one for the location/count. I think it could easily be explained to a passenger that they are free to move at some point after departure.
Air Carrier Captain reported an error regarding passenger seating location and took off with an incorrect passenger count.