Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) has be­gun a com­pre­hen­sive au­dit of all its de­part­ments, fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of CEO Garvin Med­era.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the air­line sad the au­dit was

part of a wider plan to strength­en op­er­a­tions, im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy, and en­sure greater ac­count­abil­i­ty with­in the State-owned car­ri­er.

The air­line said the au­dit forms part of five key ini­tia­tives be­ing pur­sued un­der its man­age­ment and new board of di­rec­tors, chaired by Rey­na Kow­lessar. It said oth­er pri­or­i­ties in­clude im­prov­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion with staff and stake­hold­ers, mod­ernising op­er­a­tions, en­hanc­ing cus­tomer ser­vice, and de­vel­op­ing a long-term, fi­nan­cial­ly sus­tain­able growth plan.

CAL con­firmed that chief op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer Nir­mala Ra­mai will con­tin­ue to act as CEO dur­ing the tran­si­tion pe­ri­od. Ra­mai, who has pre­vi­ous­ly act­ed in the role while Med­era was on leave, will now lead the man­age­ment team un­der the board’s di­rec­tion.

CAL said Med­era, who served as its CEO for eight years—mak­ing him the longest-serv­ing head in the air­line’s his­to­ry—al­so wrote to staff yes­ter­day morn­ing con­firm­ing his im­me­di­ate de­par­ture and in­di­cat­ing plans to “take up new chal­lenges else­where.”

He ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with “many fan­tas­tic, out­stand­ing col­leagues” dur­ing his tenure.

His res­ig­na­tion fol­lows weeks of spec­u­la­tion on so­cial me­dia that he had been placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave pend­ing a re­view, re­ports which the air­line pre­vi­ous­ly dis­missed as “false” and “unau­tho­rised.”

CAL as­sured the pub­lic that flight op­er­a­tions will con­tin­ue un­in­ter­rupt­ed dur­ing the lead­er­ship tran­si­tion, not­ing that its on­go­ing fo­cus re­mains on “sta­bil­i­ty, safe­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

On Oc­to­ber 1, news broke that Med­era, who had been on va­ca­tion leave had re­port­ed­ly en­tered in­to a mu­tu­al sep­a­ra­tion agree­ment with CAL.

In­for­ma­tion on the mat­ter, how­ev­er, was hard to come by, as Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands it is sub­ject to a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment.

The move, Guardian Me­dia was told, cre­at­ed un­ease among work­ers at the com­pa­ny, who feared more cuts with­in the air­line will be on the hori­zon.

At the time, Med­era’s de­par­ture from CAL was said to come in­to ef­fect in two weeks.

CAL has made no state­ment on the re­port­ed non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment.

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dave Tan­coo had said then that he was in the dark over ini­tial re­ports that Med­era had re­signed.