Brent Pin­heiro

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

Caribbean Air­lines Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Garvin Med­era has re­signed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, end­ing an eight-year tenure that made him the longest-serv­ing CEO in the state-owned car­ri­er’s his­to­ry.

The res­ig­na­tion was con­firmed via me­dia re­lease a short while ago.

Chief Op­er­at­ing Of­fi­cer Nir­mala Ra­mai has been ap­point­ed Act­ing CEO un­til fur­ther no­tice. Ac­cord­ing to the air­line, she will work close­ly with the Se­nior Lead­er­ship Team un­der the guid­ance of the new Board of Di­rec­tors, led by Chair Rey­na Kow­lessar, to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity and sta­bil­i­ty.

Ra­mai has pre­vi­ous­ly act­ed as CEO on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, in­clud­ing dur­ing Med­era’s re­cent va­ca­tion leave.

This an­nounce­ment fol­lows weeks of spec­u­la­tion on so­cial me­dia that Med­era had been sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave pend­ing an in­ter­nal re­view. Caribbean Air­lines de­nied those claims at the time, call­ing them “false” and “not from au­tho­rised sources.”

In a me­dia re­lease, the Board thanked Med­era for his years of ser­vice and lead­er­ship, wish­ing him the best in his fu­ture en­deav­ours. In an email to staff this morn­ing, Med­era con­firmed his res­ig­na­tion, say­ing he plans to “take up new chal­lenges else­where.”

“I want to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to thank all the em­ploy­ees of Caribbean Air­lines who have done such a fan­tas­tic job over the past few years, fac­ing some very dif­fi­cult chal­lenges and be­ing their best, time and again, for each oth­er and our pas­sen­gers,” he said. “Al­so, thanks to part­ners for their sup­port and com­mit­ment and cus­tomers for their trust and loy­al­ty. I wish every­one well.”

The air­line said it will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate its full sched­ule with­out dis­rup­tion and that the lead­er­ship change is part of its on­go­ing fo­cus on “sta­bil­i­ty, safe­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

-As part of this tran­si­tion, Caribbean Air­lines out­lined five key ini­tia­tives:

-Sup­port­ing em­ploy­ees and stake­hold­ers with open com­mu­ni­ca­tion and care.

-Re­view­ing op­er­a­tions to in­crease ef­fi­cien­cy and mod­erni­sa­tion.

-En­hanc­ing the cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence with im­proved ser­vices.

-De­vel­op­ing a long-term, fi­nan­cial­ly re­spon­si­ble and sus­tain­able growth plan.

-Con­duct­ing full au­dits of all de­part­ments to strength­en gov­er­nance, safe­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

The air­line says it is com­mit­ted to de­vel­op­ing and pro­mot­ing tal­ent from with­in be­fore seek­ing ex­ter­nal can­di­dates, say­ing it re­mains fo­cused on open com­mu­ni­ca­tion with staff, cus­tomers and stake­hold­ers as the tran­si­tion un­folds.