DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) con­vened an ur­gent meet­ing at 3 pm yes­ter­day fol­low­ing re­ports that Caribbean Air­lines’ (CAL) Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, Garvin Med­era, part­ed ways with the com­pa­ny.

Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day re­port­ed that Med­era and CAL en­tered in­to a mu­tu­al sep­a­ra­tion agree­ment sub­ject to a non-dis­clo­sure clause. The com­pa­ny’s Chief Op­er­a­tions Of­fi­cer, Nir­mala Ra­mai, has since been ap­point­ed act­ing CEO.

Ra­mai had been act­ing as Chief Fi­nan­cial Of­fi­cer af­ter Varuna Kuars­ingh was sent on leave at the end of Au­gust. CAL al­so ter­mi­nat­ed its Ex­ec­u­tive Man­ag­er for Fi­nance, Kern Gar­diner, on Sep­tem­ber 16, days be­fore his pro­ba­tion had end­ed.

A se­nior source, who spoke to Guardian Me­dia on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, de­scribed wide­spread frus­tra­tion with­in the air­line.

The lat­est lead­er­ship shake-up came as no sur­prise to the Avi­a­tion Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Al­lied Work­ers Union (ACAWU), which has long crit­i­cised what it calls the air­line’s lack of en­gage­ment with work­ers.

“The union has al­ways been at the heels of Caribbean Air­lines, want­i­ng to have a con­ver­sa­tion and to help the air­line, you know, when it comes to bet­ter man­age­ment and es­pe­cial­ly how they sup­port or the lack of sup­port when it comes to the work­ers,” said ACAWU pres­i­dent Gen­er­al Nwan­nia Sorzano.

Sorzano said she hopes the tran­si­tion of­fers an op­por­tu­ni­ty for greater in­clu­sion and col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween man­age­ment and em­ploy­ees.

When asked whether the han­dling of the CEO’s de­par­ture should con­cern the wider pub­lic, Sorzano de­clined to com­ment on the specifics.

“It is not my place to say ex­act­ly what or who,” she added. “But what I do sug­gest, and I hope that the union, the union’s voice, and there­fore the voice of the em­ploy­ees are heard be­cause that can great­ly help in terms of get­ting the air­line back on track.”

Sorzano added, “What I would say is that the man­age­ment did not pay at­ten­tion at all to the union, and so, there­fore, its em­ploy­ees.”

When con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said he still had no up­date on Med­era. Ef­forts to reach Med­era di­rect­ly were un­suc­cess­ful.

Board Chair Rey­na Kow­lessar al­so did not re­spond to calls. Her sec­re­tary an­swered her phone and in­di­cat­ed she would re­turn the call at 6 pm, but there was no re­sponse up to the time of pub­li­ca­tion.

Mean­while, ef­forts to reach the Prime Min­is­ter were un­suc­cess­ful.

Nir­mala Ra­mai: Step­ping in­to top post at CAL

As Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) en­ters a pe­ri­od of tran­si­tion, its Chief Op­er­a­tions Of­fi­cer, Nir­mala Ra­mai, has emerged as a cen­tral fig­ure in steer­ing the na­tion­al car­ri­er’s next chap­ter.

With the de­par­ture of Garvin Med­era un­der a mu­tu­al sep­a­ra­tion agree­ment, Ra­mai, who had been serv­ing as act­ing Chief Fi­nan­cial Of­fi­cer, has now as­sumed the role of act­ing Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer.

Ra­mai’s el­e­va­tion does not mark an out­side in­ter­ven­tion. She is a ca­reer in­sid­er with deep in­sti­tu­tion­al mem­o­ry, hav­ing joined the air­line’s pre­de­ces­sor, British West In­di­an Air­ways (BWIA), in March 1999.

Ac­cord­ing to her LinkedIn pro­file, Ra­mai served at BWIA un­til its clo­sure in De­cem­ber 2006 and con­tin­ued un­der CAL from Jan­u­ary 2007 to Jan­u­ary 2014. Af­ter a brief hia­tus, she re­joined the air­line in Sep­tem­ber 2017, ris­ing through se­nior man­age­ment to be­come Chief Op­er­a­tions Of­fi­cer.

Over the years, she has re­port­ed­ly led cross-func­tion­al teams and over­seen air­port op­er­a­tions, cus­tomer ser­vice strate­gies, and mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar bud­gets, in­clud­ing projects val­ued at US$20 mil­lion, which she is said to have de­liv­ered with­out cost over­runs.

Her ed­u­ca­tion­al back­ground in­cludes a Bach­e­lor of Arts from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), Post­grad­u­ate Diplo­mas in Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment and Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion, and a Cer­tifi­cate in In­ter­na­tion­al Avi­a­tion Man­age­ment from Em­bry-Rid­dle Aero­nau­ti­cal Uni­ver­si­ty.

In Au­gust 2025, Ra­mai was al­so sworn in as one of nine com­mis­sion­ers of the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent de­scribed her ap­point­ment as re­flect­ing “ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in man­ag­ing op­er­a­tions in the avi­a­tion in­dus­try”.