With juice magnate Alfredo Yao’s acquisition of local airline Asian Spirit, it was not entirely unexpected that he would change the branding of the carrier. Considering that Asian Spirit has been the butt of jokes (”fly as an Asian, land as a Spirit”) it is not surprising that Yao would rebrand the airline.
Asian Spirit has since been renamed Zest Airways, or simply, ZestAir, complete with a new orange and green livery:
Photo by Xu Zheng, taken from airliners.net. Click on the pic to enlarge.
“Asia’s most refreshing airline” has been continuing the major refleeting effort started before Yao’s acquisition of the airline, with new Xian MA-60 turboprops replacing most of its old aircraft. ZestAir is retaining its De Havilland Dash-7 aircraft however.
An interesting note is that the ZestAir website fleet homepage now officially publicizes their intent to acquire at least one (apparently, up to four) 220-seater Airbus A320. Once this jet is delivered, ZestAir will be at par with big players Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific, and would leave behind Southeast Asian Airlines as the only major Filipino carrier without a wide-bodied aircraft.
Furthermore, the arrival of yet another Airbus-powered airline might spur a new round of price-wars amongst the local carriers. If that happens, it will be good for all Philippine travellers — hopefully it won’t be at the expense of good service, though!
5 responses so far ↓
1 Sidney // Oct 14, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Airline companies are in a crisis the world over… I wonder how they would be able to still lower the price… soon it will be cheaper to travel by plane than by bus…
2 Jon Limjap // Oct 14, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Sidney,
I suspect something along those lines (e.g., being cheaper to travel by plane than by bus) but I think it’s not buses they are targetting: their crosshairs are on passenger ships.
Cebu Pac is trying to wean the B,C,D market away from SuperFerry and Negros Nav and Sulpicio, and ZestAir probably wants to join the fray. During Cebu Pac promos it’s really cheaper to take the plane than ride a boat. PAL on the other hand will remain for the A,B segment.
With the Philippines’ archipelagic nature and lack of alternatives (e.g., a train network for example) it looks like the air industry will still thrive with or without a liesure market segment.
3 Patrick // Oct 16, 2008 at 6:54 am
I tried booking for a Batanes trip in their site but it’s around < 1000 cheaper than the previous published rates of Asian Spirit. The color looks like Zest-O (the orange flavor at the least)
4 torn // Oct 16, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Ha, ha, I hadn’t heard that Asian Spirit joke — shame I won’t be able to use it now.
I agree with Patrick — the whole thing, the name and the coloring — makes me think of a nasty carbonated drink.
5 allan // Oct 28, 2008 at 2:02 pm
for sure,they’ll be serving Zesto drinks hahahaha love your own sympre
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