Zest Airways, Inc. formerly Asian Spirit Airlines, recently acquired seven brand new aircrafts from Canada.
Alfredo Yao, chairman of the Yao Group of Companies, said “Of the seven, five MA 60 with 60 seats have already been delivered and the remaining two are Airbus planes which seat 160 that should be delivered this month.”
Yao said this adds up to a total of 11 aircraft that is serving mostly tourists destinations.An additional five aircraft are expected to be delivered in 2008 to complete its re-fleeting program.Yao earlier bought Asian Spirit from the Toralba family through AMY Holdings, Inc. for Php1 billion. Zest Airways is on the verge of a re-fleeting program and will be finished by 2009.
The program aims to capture a 10-percent market share of the destinations where they fly and include the expanded routes of Mindanao, particularly Zamboanga.
The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) recently approved the international flight expansion of Zest Airways at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in Pampanga starting this month.
Zest Airways was granted 1,200 seats to service Clark-Hong Kong; 2,520 seats for Clark-Macau and Clark-Thailand with 1,260 seats.
The company, which is still using the old domestic terminal, is also prepared to transfer to the new Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) 3 before the end of this year.