Pakistan International Airlines is the national flag-carrier of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. PIA was founded on October 23, 1946 as Orient Airways based in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in British India. In 1955, Orient Airways was nationalized and merged with other airlines to form ‘Pakistan International Airlines.’ In the decades from the 1950s to the 1970s, PIA was ranked amongst the best airlines in the world. This was acclaimed to be the golden era for Pakistan International Airlines when it provided administrative and technical support to many other airlines, including Emirates. Some of the aviation records set by PIA pilots in yesteryear still stand to this day. Today, PIA is wracked by many administrative and human resource related problems notably corruption, inefficiency, favoritism, nepotism and overstaffing. Safety has also become a major concern after numerous scandals relating to the qualifications of PIA personnel, the EU ban, and the recent crash in Karachi in May, 2020, that killed 97 people.
Your assignment: Assume that you are a team member of an international management consulting firm tasked by the Government of Pakistan for formulating a overarching strategy for turning around the fortunes of PIA and restoring it to its former glorious status.
1. Start your submission by giving a brief historical narrative of how PIA glided into this sorry state of affairs. This introductory part should be in one brief paragraph not exceeding 200 words.