SYLVAIN Bosc, fastjet chief
commercial officer, grew up
within earshot of the Airbus
factory in Toulouse, France. He
says he is addicted to aviation. “I
remember when I was a kid, the
tests were performed at night for
the Concorde engine,” he recalls.
“As a child, I was sleeping with the
noise of these engines running in
the background and I found them to
be melodious.”
In Toulouse, in every family, there
would be someone who worked in
aviation, says Sylvain. “Toulouse
is the Seattle of Europe,” he says,
(Seattle is the home of Boeing).
He says growing up in Toulouse
undoubtedly had a big influence on
his career choice. Bar a brief stint
in fashion, he has spent the bulk of
his career in aviation.
After graduating, he started his
career at Air France in 1995 and
spent over a decade at the airline,
moving up the ranks and being
appointed sales and marketing
director for Japan, where he was
based for more than three years,
before taking a position as group
strategic planner for the Air France
KLM Group in 2007.
Sylvain’s first position at Air
France was in the US, where he was
involved in the pricing and revenue
management of the Concorde,
which operated a daily Paris-New
York service, as well as for charter
trips of US tourists visiting France.
Sylvain recalls working with
the trade at the time before the
Internet, when 99% of sales in
America were through the trade.
He says: “I remember very clearly
the first travel websites and when
commissions started declining in
the mid-90s. I remember, at the
time, commission went from 10% to
8%. People thought it was crazy and
unsustainable. Little did we know
that we would evolve very quickly to
a zero-commission model.”
Still, he says, in the US today,
despite some online retailers, the
same agencies that were powerful
back then, wield the power today, in
spite of all the changes.
Over his career, Sylvain has
been posted in Spain, Japan and
South Africa. “I have been very
lucky to learn the trade in different
environments,” he says. “It has
been very exciting to market a
product as aspirational as travel.”
Sylvain’s foray into fashion was
about 10 years ago, after the
financial crash when the Lehman
Brothers collapsed. “I was
pessimistic about the future of air
travel and thought it may be a good
time to try do something else.”
He went to work for an affordable
luxury fashion brand for women.
However, he quickly realised it
wasn’t for him. “I didn’t like it at
all,” he says. “Selling a service
is very different from selling a
product.”
He then took a job at TUI
to restructure the operator’s
French airline subsidiary for
four years before he was
head-hunted to SAA, where he
worked for two years. Of this
time, Sylvain says only: “It was
a challenging environment.”
When fastjet looked for a new
management team, ceo Nico
Bezuidenhout asked Sylvain to
join up and help turn the airline
around. For the year ended
December 2017, the airline
narrowed its losses from US$49,7
million (R739m) to
$24,5 million (R364m) and in
June this year, reported that it had
achieved a cashflow breakeven in
the last quarter of 2017.
Sylvain has spent the last four
years in South Africa and his
children do not want to leave. When
living in France, he spent many
holidays in Africa and has a great
passion for the continent and the
Indian Ocean islands.
“I could’ve been South African
because my forefathers were
Huguenots who were expelled
from France because they were
Protestants,” Sylvain says. However,
instead of coming to South Africa,
they went first to South America and
then North Africa. “I think I have a
special connection to Africa.”
Getting to know Sylvain
Sylvain is fluent in French,
English, Spanish and German
and can also speak a little
Catalan and Japanese.
He met his wife in Paris
20 years ago. “I am lucky that
my wife also likes travelling
and didn’t mind relocating with
me,” he says. Together, they
have three boys, aged six, 12
and 13. The kids have been
raised in Japan, France and
Africa. “We can say that we
are an international family, so
when we watch the World Cup,
we have several teams that we
support,” he laughs.
The family frequently travels
domestically. “South Africa has
so much to offer,” says Sylvain.
Next up, they will head to the
Karoo for Christmas. Their
travel is managed by an agent.
“I am a big believer that it’s
best to ask professionals to
help you.”
Sylvain is a big wine lover.
He says South Africa’s wines
compete with the best of
them in terms of quality.
“In terms of value for money,
I don’t think there is any
country that can beat South
Africa’s offering.” He finds it
refreshing that South Africa’s
winemakers are friendly
and accessible. “The wine
business in France is so
profitable that people start to
behave like divas.”
He has developed a passion for
mountain biking and completed
the Cape Epic
last year – one of the highlights
of his life. “It’s such a beautiful
race with incredible scenery.”
