B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Attendant Current
Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown
Aircraft; Human Factors
When the C Flight Attendant (FA) was bringing me the paperwork for our flight she noticed on the Specials Sheet there were 12 Infants listed. She made a comment about that since it was unusual to have so many. The woman riding 4th and I both said this couldn't happen since we only had 10 extra life vests on board and we couldn't accommodate 12. I immediately went forward and told the A FA and she told the Operations Agent and Captain. The Operations Agent told the A FA she would call for an extra 2 life vests and we would be fine. The next thing I knew two more life vests were being handed to me and boarding continued because the Operations Agent said she didn't want to have to deal with an Over Sell situation since this flight was already running late. I asked the A FA if the Captain was aware and if so; did he approve of this action. She told me he was aware two extra life vests were being brought onboard and said it was OK with him and to proceed with boarding. Since the Life Vest storage compartment would not accommodate more than 10 vests; I had to place the other two in the Flight Attendant Storage compartment and told the A FA and C FA about their location in case it became necessary to access them. I was uneasy with this practice; but complied since the Captain and Operations agent made the decision to bring two more on the plane. We pushed back from the gate with a life vest for every soul on board. The A and C FAs mentioned to me that the Operations agent was very upset when we arrived and told them we had violated an FAR by having 2 extra life vests on board the plane and demanded we turn them over to him immediately. We did. During our return flight; we looked in our Inflight Manual to find the following note attached to FAR under the Equipment section: The total number of Passengers (including lap children) must not exceed the total number of passenger and spare life vests onboard. If the total number of Passengers exceeds the total number of life vests; notify the Captain and Operations Agent. The aircraft may not depart unless there is a life vest available for each Passenger onboard.  I and the C FA complied with this note attachment exactly by making the A FA aware of the situation. The A FA did so as well by relaying this information to the Operations Agent and Captain. The plane left the gate with a life vest for every Passenger onboard. I just had to place the extra two in another compartment and make my crewmembers aware of their location in case they needed to be utilized. This incident should have never gotten to the flight crew. The manifest or Special List should have flagged the fact that there were more than 10 lap children listed on the flight. The crew should have stood fast and not let more than the required number of Passengers and Lap Children board the aircraft regardless of the Operations Agent's remedy to not having enough life vests onboard. An oversell should have been enacted regardless of the inconvenience to Customers.
I noticed on the Special Sheet that there were 12 lap children listed. I brought it to the attention of B Flight Attendant (FA) The woman riding 4th also heard me mention it and agreed with the B FA that we couldn't board that many lap children since we only had 10 extra life vests onboard this model aircraft. He and I went forward and let our A FA know of the issue. She informed the Operations Agent and Captain. The flight had already been delayed an hour and half due to maintenance and the Operations Agent told us she would have two more life vests brought to the plane so she would not have to deal with an oversell situation. She brought two more life vests and we continued boarding. The Captain agreed with the Operations Agent and approved her remedy to the situation.We pushed back from the gate with a full plane plus a 4th on the jump seat and 12 lap children. We had life vests for every Passenger and Lap Child onboard.When we landed; the Operations Agent opened the door and immediately demanded the extra life vests and told us we had violated an FAR by adding life vests. We gave them to him without hesitation. He said the Operations Agent should have oversold the flight so this would not have happened. On our return flight we researched our Inflight Manual and found in the Equipment section the applicable FAR. The note attached to this FAR read: The total number of Passengers (including lap children) must not exceed the total number of passenger and spare life vests onboard. If the total number of Passengers exceeds the total number of life vest; notify the Captain and Operations Agent. The aircraft may not depart unless there is a life vest available for each Passenger onboard. It appeared we were in compliance with this note in that there was a life vest for every Passenger onboard the aircraft. We later interpreted that adding two life vests was a violation since there were to only be 10 extra life vests on board. Since we added two; the B FA told us he was unable to store them with the others and had placed them in the Flight Attendant storage cabinet. He wanted us to know where they were located in the event we had to access them. This issue should have been recognized at several levels before arriving to us on the plane. There should be some method of flagging an excess of Lap Children that would make us out of compliance with the allowed number of life vests onboard the aircraft. The Operations agent should have respected the information given her by the A FA and taken the necessary action to correct the problem without violating any regulation.
B737 flight attendants became aware during boarding that there were 12 lap children on the flight and only 10 infant life vests aboard. The operations agent was made aware and she provided two more life vests. This appeared to comply with the letter of the FAR but the reporters were not sure.