According to reports coming out of Tunisia, six members of cabin crew from Saudi Arabian Airlines have been arrested on suspicion of assaulting a fellow crew member at the airline’s crew hotel in Gammarth, near Tunis. The incident allegedly took place on Friday evening and forced the cancellation of Saudia’s daily flight from Tunisia’s capital to Jeddah on the 15th June.
Details of what exactly happened are still very sketchy but in a Tweet posted on Saudia’s official Twitter account on Saturday, the airline confirmed that a crew member had been seriously injured. The short statement said that Saudi Arabian authorities were working with their counterparts in Tunisia and that an update would be provided once the investigation was complete.
The Tunisie Numerique news site reports that the injured crew member was found by the hotel pool and remains in hospital in intensive care. Six other crew members have been detained by Tunisian authorities on suspicion of assaulting their colleague and have been barred from leaving the country.
Saudi Arabian Airlines flight SV366, which is operated on an Airbus A330, was subsequently cancelled so that a replacement crew could be found to operate the flight.
Two Saudia crew members were killed in deadly suicide attacks that rocked Colombo, Sri Lanka in April. One of the cabin crew had worked for the airline for over 25-years, while the second victim that been flying for Saudia for just over two years. A third member of cabin crew was seriously injured but survived the terror attack that left a total of 31 foreign nationals dead.
