Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight Attendant Current
Time Pressure; Workload; Distraction
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Procedure
I'm surprised it has taken this long for an incident to arise from the perfect storm of risks posed by [company] prioritizing expediency before safety. We boarded late due to cleaners still being onboard. The crew were the last able to even get to their jump seats and stow their bags. Customers were already boarding before they had completed their safety checks.We are now told (and I vehemently disagree) we should; in such situations; conduct or continue our safety checks whilst boarding is already underway. I believe this to be fundamentally unsafe. We are told every year at [annual training] to stop; drop and review our doors; to exclude all interruptions; [and] to ignore passengers until the review is concluded. This is with very good reason. When passengers are amongst us; inevitably asking us questions; it is very easy to believe you have completed a door review when you actually didn't. Then; a slide is blown.Well; this time; a delay was blown. Trying to balance passengers and safety checks is an accident waiting to happen. It's high time we address the glaring problem here. We used to have 15 minutes to conduct safety checks and prepare for pre-departure. Now; we have [less time] from when the out based crew board; to conduct a briefing; prepare pre-departure and do thorough safety checks. [This is] less than half the time we had before; this isn't feasible; so safety checks are left to after boarding has begun.'Welcome aboard sir'(Oxygen 1;600 PSI)'Welcome aboard madam'(Connected to high flow)'34H is on the far side Sir'(Wire seal intact on H2O extinguisher) You get the idea. If that wasn't already enough to precipitate a situation like this; we were short staffed [in the forward cabin]. ( Soon to be standard staffing but leave that safety breach for another day; suffice it to remind ourselves that taking away a galley position on this plane doesn't only negatively impact the service but stretches an already overstretched crew even thinner during boarding whilst monitoring the cabin for suspicious passengers and performing safety checks and myriad other boarding activities.)Economy only has 4 crew when loads back are there under 181. Of the 4: One Flight Attendant is primary greeter. The second Flight Attendant is secondary greeter. The third [Flight Attendant] is performing pre-departure in [forward cabin] on every flight (not just like today when we were short a crew member). [This leaves] only the ONE Flight Attendant by themselves in the economy cabin to manage up to 180 passengers boarding with seat dupes; water for pills; bag stowage and monitoring all 4 unattended doors just to name a few daily duties. The 3rd Flight Attendant was also responsible for distributing infant life vests which had to be done after her duties in [the forward cabin] and of course after the safety demo; which plays right after the door is shut. She then; during taxi; went to complete her safety checks and also distribute infant vests only to find no vests in their proper place. In compartment clearly labeled 'Emergency Equipment Only. Infant Vest' was instead 2 empty catering carriers! How long had they been flying around the system? I've said many times we should have our full 15 minutes (briefing already done in the office) to ensure safety checks are complete before boarding; just for this reason. That gives Maintenance 45 minutes to source missing emergency equipment and avoid such a delay. Such problems are bound to reoccur until [company] reverses policy and moves back to separate briefings concluded in the office and [company] makes all crew boarding times on wide bodies at least 15 minutes before passengers board just for safety checks and pre-departure (not a rushed; unsafe briefing crammed in too). Crew briefings are vital for team cohesion and common understanding. Back to today's recipe for failure. I called the flight deck to inform them that no infant vests were to be found in theonly location specified. I conducted an all-call and asked the whole crew to look in every compartment possible to try and scavenge a few spare vests for the 3 infants. We found none. I told the pilots we would continue searching until we reached the gate to see which came first. The gate came first. A team of mechanics brought about 5 vests on and one did manage to find 1 spare vest hidden behind and under a group seat belts in a high compartment that only he was tall enough to see being about 6'3' tall. At least 2 flight attendants had searched the same closets in first class. The lone vest wouldn't have been enough for the infants onboard. The mechanics photographed the catering equipment in the 'emergency only' compartment; removed these carriers; and placed the infant vests back inside where they belonged. We then departed. The delay was not only down to the vests. The pilot bus was stuck in traffic and they only subsequently arrived well after the scheduled departure time. We were already delayed. Then; the pilots preformed their safety checks carefully and thoroughly; without any interruptions from passengers and funnily enough; absent any pressure to rush from [company]; the way we used to perform our safety checks. We need briefings back in a briefing room with briefing sheets and adequate time to foster crew cohesion and interdependence. We need an additional 15 minutes onboard before passengers in every instance to ensure safety checks are as sacrosanct as pilots treat their checklists. 10 minutes is not enough time for briefings; safety checks and pre-departure set up. Something has to give. Safety should never be that thing. This will happen again with graver consequences one day. Let's hope [company] reverses course before it's too late.
Air carrier recently changed show time for wide body aircraft and reduced the amount of time for flight attendants to conduct preflight safety checks. The flight had three infants and the appropriate amount of infant life vest were not aboard the aircraft until brought by Maintenance.