Is Zest Airline a Budget Airline? -Understand the Facts about it

Zest Air is a low-cost carrier indeed. It was a low-cost airline, which had its home base in the Philippines and it was then called Asian Spirit, when it was established in 1995. Over the years, it experienced a rebranding of Zest Airways then AirAsia Zest and it merged with AirAsia Philippines to form Philippines AirAsia in 2015. Zest Air is a low-cost carrier and the following is a breakdown of it.

Origin and Evolution

Zest Air started under the name Asian Spirit in 1995 as an air transportation union of workers in the Philippines. It began as a small regional airline with a cooperative business strategy, operating poorly served secondary and tertiary routes in the Philippines. In 2005, the airline changed to a corporate structure and it was later acquired by AMY Holdings in 2008 and rebranded to Zest Airways. The airline then proceeded to grow its business and even enter into a partnership and rebranded once again to AirAsia Zest in 2013 as a part of the AirAsia group. 

Low-Cost Carrier Model

Being a low-cost carrier, Zest Air specialized in providing low-cost air transport mainly in the Philippines and in the international sites adjacent to it. Low-cost carrier (LCC) model focuses on making the operations less complex and reducing costs with the aim of offering lower fares than conventional full-service airlines. Zest air used to fly on the feeder routes between the regional airports and the major hubs of Manila and Cebu, where air travel became affordable to the larger populations. The services provided by the airline consisted of no frills but efficient airline services such as the Hot seats which had extra legroom, offering a premium and the standard economy seats, which fit the common patterns of fare structures associated with most low-cost airlines. 

Passenger Experience and Services.

Despite being a low-cost airline, Zest Air also provided few value-added services which were not very prevalent among low cost airlines at that time. These consisted of pre-prepared meals with hot or spicy choices, onboard duty-free shopping, freight forwarding, and services to the expectant women, elderly and minors not accompanied. The passengers were also provided with selected international flights that had onboard Wi-Fi and in-flight entertainment that improved the passenger experience. A promotional slogan that the airline used was the right way to fly, which emphasized on customer friendly policy in the framework of low cost carriers. 

Rebranding and Merger

Zest Air performed a share swap and alliance with AirAsia Philippines and became AirAsia Zest in 2013. This partnership gave the branding and operational assistance of the larger AirAsia network with its own identity in the very first stage. In 2015, the Philippines AirAsia totally amalgamated with AirAsia Zest terminating the brand of Zest Air. This was a common trend of consolidation of small budget airlines to be in a better position to compete in the low-cost aviation industry.

Conclusion

Zest Air was also a low-cost carrier, which had been in operation almost twenty years as a Filipino low-cost mainline airline. It began with a model of cooperation and expanded into a major force in the budget airline sector in the Philippines by acquiring and forming partnerships. Its recent transformation as AirAsia Zest underscores its merger to one of the biggest low-cost carriers in Southeast Asia and its further consolidation as a low-cost airline that ensures that air travel is affordable and accessible to the masses and provides passenger-friendly, reasonable comfort.