Narrative:

I was met at the gate by several fas (flight attendant) before we were boarded on the aircraft saying they had a problem and they needed my support. The inflight crew desk overstaffed the aircraft to 13 fas it was a flight over 8 hours requiring 1 hour of rest; so therefore there were not enough rest areas per their contract. I asked them to contact the crew desk for resolution as I did not want to negotiate there contract; and that they should do that. They said they did contact the crew desk but nothing was done. It put me and the customer service director in the middle. I found three solutions to the situation but again the flight attendant on the phone had no direction from the inflight supervisor or scheduler. The three solutions were dead head the 13th flight attendant; work the 13th flight attendant with blocked seat for rest or not go till it was resolved. In order to resolve the conflict with minimum impact to the flight; the service director blocked a seat in business per the contract. I applaud the service director for working with the crew to resolve this staffing problem. The crew desk needs to follow through with the details and provide written direction to the customer service to block seats when rest facilities are not available or overstaffed. By not doing the proper job puts undue stress on the flight and crew members and customer service to make things work. I'm not sure people are aware of how one simple thing impacts several different departments and the flight itself. Please have crew desk follow up and resolve the situation right there and then on the phone or do it properly and document it via written message to the fas and the base cs (customer service).

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B777 Captain was reported having to help resolve a Flight Attendant crew staffing issue prior to takeoff.

Narrative: I was met at the gate by several FAs (Flight Attendant) before we were boarded on the aircraft saying they had a problem and they needed my support. The inflight crew desk overstaffed the aircraft to 13 FAs it was a flight over 8 hours requiring 1 hour of rest; so therefore there were not enough rest areas per their contract. I asked them to contact the crew desk for resolution as I did not want to negotiate there contract; and that they should do that. They said they did contact the crew desk but nothing was done. It put me and the Customer Service Director in the middle. I found three solutions to the situation but again the flight attendant on the phone had no direction from the inflight supervisor or scheduler. The three solutions were dead head the 13th FA; work the 13th FA with blocked seat for rest or not go till it was resolved. In order to resolve the conflict with minimum impact to the flight; the Service Director blocked a seat in business per the contract. I applaud the Service Director for working with the crew to resolve this staffing problem. The crew desk needs to follow through with the details and provide written direction to the customer service to block seats when rest facilities are not available or overstaffed. By not doing the proper job puts undue stress on the flight and crew members and customer service to make things work. I'm not sure people are aware of how one simple thing impacts several different departments and the flight itself. Please have crew desk follow up and resolve the situation right there and then on the phone or do it properly and document it via written message to the FAs and the base CS (Customer Service).

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.