A319
Flight Attendant Current
Flight Attendant Total 15
Communication Breakdown; Confusion
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown
Chart Or Publication; Aircraft; Human Factors; Incorrect / Not Installed / Unavailable Part
Passenger brought to my attention that her 3-year old and 4-year old girls could not be secured in their seatbelts. On this A319 aircraft; it is equipped with the new acro seats and true enough we could not get seatbelt to tighten enough to secure the two girls. We ended up putting coats to secure them better-I know this is not the answer; but was the best we could do. I believe the way the seatback curves backwards makes the seatbelt obsolete for a small child. During pre-flight; it is recommend to change the seatbelts.
Reporter stated young children cannot be properly secured with seatbelts in the new ACRO passenger seats that have been; and are being installed on their Airbus aircraft. The retrofitted seats are narrower; but the curvature of the seatback is deeper than the previous passenger seatbacks. Seatbelts from those older seats were reinstalled with the newer seats; but the design of the old seatbelts will not tighten down enough due to the increase seatback curvature on the newer seats. Small children basically slide aft and fill up the curvature area of the seatback and the older seatbelts just cannot tighten up enough to hold them in the seat. Reporter stated that parents cannot use child booster seats because they are not FAA approved. What are parents to do?  As flight attendants; all they are looking for is a solution to the unsafe condition; but so far their Air Carrier has not responded.
A Flight Attendant reports that young children cannot be properly secured in the new ACRO passenger seats installed on their Airbus aircraft. The same seatbelts from the removed seats were reinstalled with the new seats; but will not tighten up enough to accommodate the increase curvature of the new seatbacks.