An A320 captain reported that an unauthorized jumpseater was on board but the gate agent refused his...

Narrative:

Captains authority. After a very hectic last minute boarding with transferred passengers from a mechanical delay on another flight; a company pilot arrived as door was getting closed. The cabin was full and so I asked for his flight deck authority access card. He did not have one. So I tried to quickly get the csr's attention as he was pulling the jetway away to come back. The concern was that the csr did not comply with my clear hand signal to come back and instead only stopped the jetway and made a phone call. This is by no means a critique towards the csr but a critique on the misguided policy of company gate departure procedures that place a heavy burden on csr's to get the flights out on time and not get charged a delay. The serious concern here is that my captain's authority was completely ignored and deviated from; when the need for the jetway to return was requested; as this could have been for a myriad of possible emergencies to include; unathorized/unkown person on board; medical emergency; terror threat; fire; smoke; fuel threat; etc. The responsibility lies with the captain and thus his or hers decision to return the jetway should not be questioned when it is clear they are signaling for it to return and thus the csr should not be in any way charged with any delay whatsoever. The delayed action to return the jetway presents a liable and dangerous scenario!

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An A320 Captain reported that an unauthorized jumpseater was on board but the Gate Agent refused his command to return the jetway thus ignoring Captain's authority.

Narrative: Captains Authority. After a very hectic last minute boarding with transferred passengers from a mechanical delay on another flight; a Company pilot arrived as door was getting closed. The cabin was full and so I asked for his Flight Deck Authority Access Card. He did not have one. So I tried to quickly get the CSR's attention as he was pulling the jetway away to come back. The concern was that the CSR did not comply with my clear hand signal to come back and instead only stopped the jetway and made a phone call. This is by no means a critique towards the CSR but a critique on the misguided policy of Company gate departure procedures that place a heavy burden on CSR's to get the flights out on time and not get charged a delay. The serious concern here is that my Captain's authority was completely ignored and deviated from; when the need for the jetway to return was requested; as this could have been for a myriad of possible emergencies to include; unathorized/unkown person on board; medical emergency; terror threat; fire; smoke; fuel threat; etc. The responsibility lies with the Captain and thus his or hers decision to return the jetway should not be questioned when it is clear they are signaling for it to return and thus the CSR should not be in any way charged with any delay whatsoever. The delayed action to return the jetway presents a liable and dangerous scenario!

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	969619
Time
Date	201109
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	A320
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Parked
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 90 Flight Crew Total 20000 Flight Crew Type 9500
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown

An A320 captain reported that an unauthorized jumpseater was on board but the gate agent refused his command to return the jetway thus ignoring captain's authority.