Narrative:

During boarding as I was walking the cabin to do a compliance check and exit seat briefing a passenger stopped me and questioned why she was seated next to a person she did not know. I told her I would check and see if there was another seat she could move to. At this time I did not see any open row that has no other people in it. I was going to send a flight family message to alert the gate agent. I walked up a row or two and another lady questioned me about why her seat would not recline (she was in front of the exit row). I explained to her why her seat would not recline and told her I would check with the agent about reseating them. I then walked to the aft jump seat to send the flight family request. The agent then came down and we had a short conversation about rebooking the one lady and the other passengers who wanted a seat that reclined. There were no other seats to move the recline passenger to and the other passenger was given the option to take a later flight with no guarantee that she would have a seat by herself. I informed all passengers involved. We took off and it was not till about mid flight that I realized that I had not ok'ed my exit seats. I proceeded right away to the exit row and briefed both passengers and they both were ok to sit in an exit row. The lady passenger did say that she noticed I had not briefed them before the flight. [The cause was] work overload.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Flight Attendant reported inadvertently not briefing exit row passengers due to other passengers making special seating requests.

Narrative: During boarding as I was walking the cabin to do a compliance check and exit seat briefing a passenger stopped me and questioned why she was seated next to a person she did not know. I told her I would check and see if there was another seat she could move to. At this time I did not see any open row that has no other people in it. I was going to send a flight family message to alert the Gate Agent. I walked up a row or two and another lady questioned me about why her seat would not recline (she was in front of the exit row). I explained to her why her seat would not recline and told her I would check with the agent about reseating them. I then walked to the aft jump seat to send the flight family request. The agent then came down and we had a short conversation about rebooking the one lady and the other passengers who wanted a seat that reclined. There were no other seats to move the recline passenger to and the other passenger was given the option to take a later flight with no guarantee that she would have a seat by herself. I informed all passengers involved. We took off and it was not till about mid flight that I realized that I had not ok'ed my exit seats. I proceeded right away to the exit row and briefed both passengers and they both were ok to sit in an exit row. The lady passenger did say that she noticed I had not briefed them before the flight. [The cause was] work overload.

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.