DHC-7 (Dash 7) Asian Spirit

DHC-7 (Dash7) Fuselage mod

FIRST LIVERY build of my DHC-7 (Dash 7) quad turboprop airliner with interior in Asian Spirit (Philippines) colors.

Asian Spirit was a low cost airline in the Philippines founded in 1995 by a group of rich former airline employees through a cooperative. The airline's logo and tail motif pays tribute to a Philippine Festival called Masskara (Mask) Festival, which is held annually in Bacolod, Negros Island. The airline's first aircraft were two second-hand de Havilland-7 (DHC Dash 7) flying the first ever regular scheduled flights at Caticlan Airport - which was then the direct gateway to the world famous Boracay island. They eventually acquired more second hand planes, most of which were very old. After a string of incidents involving their planes (and a fatal crash in 1999 resulting to 17 deaths) throughout their operation, people began mocking the airline - earning them the infamous satirical motto:

"Fly as an Asian... Land as a Spirit".

Despite this Asian Spirit grew to be the 3rd largest airline in the Philippines, but in 2008, the Airline was sold to a Filipino business tycoon and rebranded as Zest Airways - acquiring new Airbus A320 jets in the process.
The Dash 7s continued to fly with Asian Spirit colors until 2011, after which they were quietly withdrawn from service. There is at least one photo of a Dash7 painted on ZestAir colors, but the plane never flew again as ZestAir.
ZestAir eventually partnered, then merged with, the Philippine franchise of AirAsia, and in 2015, became known as Philippines AirAsia.

The Asian Spirit Dash-7s are currently still parked or stored somewhere in the outskirts of Manila Airport.