Beginnings as Asian Spirit

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Zest Airways was established as Asian Spirit in September 1995 by three friends: Antonio "Toti" Turalba, Emmanuel "Noel" Oñate and Archibald Po, who contributed $1 million each to start up the Airline Employees Cooperative (AEC). They invited 36 of their friends, mostly former Philippine Airlines employees, to run Asian Spirit through a salary-to-equity swap deal. The Po family held the majority of ownership.
It started operations in April 1996 with two second hand Dash 7 aircraft servicing only one scheduled commercial route with two flights per day from Manila to Malay, serving the fledging resort island of Boracay. To maximize its aircraft utilization, it introduced new routes to the present-day towns of San Jose, Virac, Daet and Alcantara, and the cities of Cauayan and Masbate, regarded as secondary and tertiary routes by Air Transportation Office, and are not serviced by major airlines. In 1997, the cooperative changed to a corporate set-up with the establishment of Asian Spirit, Inc., whose registration was approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2005.

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Asian Spirit NAMC YS-11 airliner, at Loakan Airport, Baguio City July, 2006.
At the time, Asian Spirit has the distinction of being the first scheduled airline to serve Boracay. Other operators served the airport on a charter basis then. It became the Philippines' fourth flag carrier (after Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and Air Philippines) in 2003.

Zest Air's Airbus A319 at the New Bacolod-Silay Airport, Negros Occidental
[edit]Transition to Zest Airways
Asian Spirit was sold to AMY Holdings, a holding company controlled by businessman Alfredo M. Yao, in March 2008. After the success of the takeover, Yao expressed interest in merging Asian Spirit with South East Asian Airlines (SEAIR). The two airlines have been in merger talks and were expected to make a decision soon.[6] Yao was supposed to purchase a sixty percent stake in SEAIR, although the deal fell through because of a stolid response from SEAIR management. The merger talks failed and both airlines are operating independent.

On September 30, 2008, Asian Spirit officially announced that it will be re-branding itself as Zest Airways. Reports say the name switch reflects the Yao's stake in the company, as well as an allusion to the flagship business of AMY Holdings: juicemaker Zest-O. The firm's board approved the name change in August, while the Civil Aeronautics Board approved the switch earlier this month.

The airline wants to fly to three international points to Sandakan( - already stopped), Malaysia from Zamboanga, to Seoul from Kalibo, Laoag, and Davao, and Macau from Angeles City. However these international routings never took off. It has also intended to commence international expansion to Bangkok and Singapore from Manila in 2009.