Caribbean Air­lines has com­plet­ed its au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments for 2017, 2018 and 2019, clear­ing three years from a nine-year au­dit back­log as the ma­jor­i­ty state-owned car­ri­er moves to bring its fi­nan­cial re­port­ing up to date.

In a news re­lease sent yes­ter­day, Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) said its 2020 au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments are tar­get­ted for com­ple­tion by the end of Oc­to­ber, while au­dits for 2021 through 2025 re­main on sched­ule.

The up­date was pre­sent­ed at CAL’s ninth an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing on Sep­tem­ber 22 at its Pi­ar­co head of­fice.

The au­dit progress comes against a his­to­ry of sig­nif­i­cant loss­es and fi­nan­cial re­port­ing is­sues at the air­line.

For 2016, CAL record­ed a to­tal com­pre­hen­sive loss of $695.4 mil­lion, tak­ing its ac­cu­mu­lat­ed deficit to $2.175 bil­lion at De­cem­ber 31 of that year. The 2016 loss was sub­stan­tial­ly high­er than the $108.1 mil­lion to­tal com­pre­hen­sive loss record­ed in 2015.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo laid CAL’s con­sol­i­dat­ed au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments for 2016 in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Oc­to­ber 13, 2025, be­fore de­liv­er­ing the na­tion­al Bud­get.

The KP­MG au­dit of the 2016 ac­counts al­so raised ques­tions over the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of some fi­nan­cial records. CAL re­port­ed in­ven­to­ry of $137 mil­lion, but the au­di­tors were un­able to con­firm the bal­ance be­cause of miss­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion and in­com­plete records.

Against that back­ground, CAL chair Rey­na Kow­lessar has de­scribed clear­ing the au­dit back­log as cen­tral to the air­line’s re­build­ing pro­gramme.

“Bring­ing the air­line’s au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments up to date, fol­low­ing an in­her­it­ed nine-year back­log, is an es­sen­tial part of our fo­cus on re­build­ing, grow­ing and po­si­tion­ing Caribbean Air­lines for last­ing suc­cess,” Kow­lessar told the AGM, as quot­ed in the re­lease.

The air­line is pur­su­ing the re­main­ing au­dits, while fac­ing con­tin­ued pres­sure from high­er fu­el prices, one of the largest ex­pens­es in avi­a­tion.

CAL added that it is re­spond­ing with tighter fi­nan­cial and op­er­a­tional dis­ci­pline while main­tain­ing es­sen­tial con­nec­tiv­i­ty.