An A320 captain authorized a jumpseating flight attendant to occupy a flight station jumpseat after ...

Narrative:

Failure of the forward view jumpseat to deploy. During descent approaching 10;000 ft I received a call from the C flight attendant informing me that the aft forward view jumpseat was inop (would not deploy) and there was no longer a seat available for a jumpseating flight attendant. The flight was completely full; 150 passengers; so there were no cabin seats available. Since the extra flight attendant was one of ours I felt the best/safest course of action was to allow her to sit in the flight deck using one of the available jumpseats rather than occupying the lav or sitting on the galley floor. After landing I had the C flight attendant show me what was wrong. She demonstrated how the seat would not deploy into the aisle from its stowed position. I also queried her about a 2nd jumpseat in the aft galley and I was informed that there was only a single fold down style bench seat available.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An A320 Captain authorized a jumpseating Flight Attendant to occupy a flight station jumpseat after a cabin jumpseat became inoperative on a full flight with no other cabin seats available.

Narrative: Failure of the forward view jumpseat to deploy. During descent approaching 10;000 FT I received a call from the C Flight Attendant informing me that the aft forward view jumpseat was inop (would not deploy) and there was no longer a seat available for a jumpseating Flight Attendant. The flight was completely full; 150 passengers; so there were no cabin seats available. Since the extra flight attendant was one of ours I felt the best/safest course of action was to allow her to sit in the flight deck using one of the available jumpseats rather than occupying the lav or sitting on the galley floor. After landing I had the C Flight Attendant show me what was wrong. She demonstrated how the seat would not deploy into the aisle from its stowed position. I also queried her about a 2nd jumpseat in the aft galley and I was informed that there was only a single fold down style bench seat available.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.

Attributes
ACN	834591
Time
Date	200905
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	PHX.Airport
State Reference	AZ
Environment
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	A320
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Descent
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Cabin Crew Seat
Person 1
Function	Captain Check Pilot
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Procedural FAR Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

An A320 captain authorized a jumpseating flight attendant to occupy a flight station jumpseat after a cabin jumpseat became inoperative on a full flight with no other cabin seats available.