Narrative:

1L jumpseat written up on inbound; did not retract properly. Waiting for final maintenance release within 10 minutes of departure. Informed by maintenance they planned to defer the jumpseat. I asked the flight attendants how that would impact them and if they were comfortable with deferral? Purser was concerned that inop jumpseat was at 1L by the interphone/PA handset and he would have to use a forward facing seat without access to phone. When I inspected jumpseat that would be used I had concerns that the purser would not have phone access and also that while in the forward facing jumpseat he would not be able to monitor the cabin from the seat. There is no way to see what is going on in the cabin from that position. I contacted dispatch and said that the forward facing jumpseat was not acceptable due to safety as well as security issues and requested that the rear facing one be fixed before departure. According to the MEL the 1L rear facing jumpseat is deferrable. By this time the flight attendant supervisor had arrived at the aircraft and began pressuring the purser to accept the aircraft as is. The flight attendant supervisor seemed unaware that the captain is the final authority as to safety/security issues in such instances. By intimidating the flight attendants with reprimand threats the supervisor was in effect jeopardizing a resource (the flight attendants' comfort level with security issues in the cabin) that I rely on as a captain. I do not think that the 1L rear facing jumpseat should be deferrable on the 767 as that leaves the cockpit area vulnerable; a forward facing crewmember cannot see what is coming forward from the cabin nor do they have access to the phone to communicate anything that is going on either from any other cabin crewmember nor the cockpit.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Flight attendants and Captain of a B767-300 disputed the deferral of the 1L jumpseat as not being consistent with desired level of safety and security.

Narrative: 1L jumpseat written up on inbound; did not retract properly. Waiting for final Maintenance Release within 10 minutes of departure. Informed by maintenance they planned to defer the jumpseat. I asked the flight attendants how that would impact them and if they were comfortable with deferral? Purser was concerned that inop jumpseat was at 1L by the interphone/PA handset and he would have to use a forward facing seat without access to phone. When I inspected jumpseat that would be used I had concerns that the Purser would not have phone access and also that while in the forward facing jumpseat he would not be able to monitor the cabin from the seat. There is no way to see what is going on in the cabin from that position. I contacted Dispatch and said that the forward facing jumpseat was not acceptable due to safety as well as security issues and requested that the rear facing one be fixed before departure. According to the MEL the 1L rear facing jumpseat is deferrable. By this time the Flight Attendant Supervisor had arrived at the aircraft and began pressuring the Purser to accept the aircraft as is. The Flight Attendant Supervisor seemed unaware that the Captain is the final authority as to safety/security issues in such instances. By intimidating the flight attendants with reprimand threats the Supervisor was in effect jeopardizing a resource (the flight attendants' comfort level with security issues in the cabin) that I rely on as a Captain. I do not think that the 1L rear facing jumpseat should be deferrable on the 767 as that leaves the cockpit area vulnerable; a forward facing crewmember cannot see what is coming forward from the cabin nor do they have access to the phone to communicate anything that is going on either from any other cabin crewmember nor the cockpit.

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.