Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) of Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed (CAL) Cap­tain Ian Brun­ton has been fired. CAL's board of di­rec­tors, chaired by Nicholas Is­sa III, has ap­point­ed vice-pres­i­dent, com­mer­cial and cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence, Robert Cor­bie, as in­ter­im CEO. The T&T Guardian was re­li­ably in­formed by a source in the air­line in­dus­try Brun­ton re­ceived the in­for­ma­tion, via a let­ter, yes­ter­day. Brun­ton, 64, was ap­point­ed CEO on Oc­to­ber 15 2009. Con­tact­ed, Brun­ton ad­mit­ted he re­ceived a let­ter but re­fused to give de­tails. He said ques­tions should be di­rect­ed to Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er.

Brun­ton said the let­ter was "in­con­clu­sive" and "not de­fin­i­tive."

Pressed for fur­ther com­ments, he said: "It's sub ju­dice you know. I can't talk about it. I did get a let­ter." Brun­ton said he would is­sue a state­ment at a lat­er date. His dis­missal al­so was con­firmed in a state­ment is­sued by CAL's cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment. The state­ment al­so said Cor­bie had been act­ing as CEO for the last week. "Caribbean Air­lines has to­day (yes­ter­day) an­nounced that its chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Cap­tain Ian Brun­ton, has demit­ted of­fice," the state­ment said. It added Nicholas and the board gave their full sup­port to Cor­bie who had 25 years in the avi­a­tion busi­ness.

"The new board has a fidu­cia­ry du­ty to car­ry out the vi­sion of be­ing the pre­ferred air­line of choice for the Caribbean. "Mr Cor­bie will be over­see­ing a new­ly merged work­force of 1,866 em­ploy­ees," the state­ment added. Cor­bie would al­so car­ry out his sub­stan­tive role, it said. The state­ment said he was man­dat­ed to have the air­line func­tion as one com­pa­ny re­spon­si­ble for two brands–Caribbean Air­lines and Air Ja­maica–in keep­ing with state­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Ju­ly.

Brun­ton was vice-pres­i­dent of op­er­a­tions at British West In­di­an Air­ways (BWIA) for six months in 2006 be­fore as­cend­ing to ex­ec­u­tive vice-pres­i­dent, op­er­a­tions, at CAL in 2007. BWIA closed op­er­a­tions in 2006 to make way for CAL which was launched on Jan­u­ary 30 2007. Brun­ton's ca­reer in avi­a­tion spans some 48 years, hav­ing start­ed at the Roy­al Air Force. He re­placed Phillip Saun­ders who had re­signed from the po­si­tion to re­turn to the Unit­ed King­dom. Ef­forts to con­tact Warn­er were fu­tile.

More on Brun­ton

�2 BWIA cap­tain from 1976 to 2005;

�2 cap­tain and fleet man­ag­er from 1980 to 1987;

�2 chair­man of the T&T Air­line Pi­lots' As­so­ci­a­tion from 1993 to 1995;

�2 BWIA board mem­ber from 1995 to 1997;

�2 mem­ber of the Stand­ing Air Ad­vi­so­ry Board; and,

�2 first lo­cal chair­man of the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty.